LAGUE  OF  NATIONS 


A  CHAPTER 
IN  THE  HISTORY  OF 
THE  MOVEMENT 


THEODORE 
MARBURG 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

A  CHAPTER  IN  THE  HISTORY 
OF  THE  MOVEMENT 


BY 
THEODORE  MARBURG,  M.A.,  LL.D. 

Formerly  United  States  Minister  to  Belgium 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1919 

All  rights  reserve  A 


COPYRIGHT,  1917 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  October,   1917. 
Reprinted.     November,    1917. 


^  * 

\  c\  r  SANTA   BARBARA 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

This  work  aims  not  at  a  compre- 
hensive narrative  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  opinion  on  that  greatest  of 
problems  —  adequate  international  or- 
ganization —  but  is  confined  largely  to 
developments  with  which  the  writer  has 
been  personally  connected. 

Due  largely  to  its  endeavour  to  con- 
fine its  program  to  the  realizable  in  the 
present  stage  of  world  opinion  and  preju- 
dice, the  American  movement  appears  to 
have  been  accepted  abroad  more  freely 
than  that  of  any  other  group.  Progress 
beyond  the  hope  of  its  originators  is  al- 
ready recorded.  But  as  we  are  still  in 
the  full  tide  of  events  in  this  field  the  au- 
thor hopes  to  follow  the  present  publica- 
tion with  a  second  volume. 


FOREWORD 

This  little  book  is  a  history  of  the 
movement  in  the  United  States  to  secure 
action  by  the  United  States  and  other 
Nations,  after  this  great  world  war, 
looking  to  the  establishment  of  a  League 
to  Enforce  Peace.  Mr.  Marburg,  the 
author,  is  a  student  of  international  law, 
a  publicist,  and  a  diplomat  of  marked 
ability  and  learning.  Under  the  last 
Republican  Administration,  he  was 
United  States  Minister  to  Belgium. 
With  great  public  spirit  he  has  always 
been  active  in  associations  for  the  pro- 
motion of  arbitration  and  judicial  set- 
tlement of  international  controversies. 

Mr.  Marburg,  with  Mr.  Holt  of  the 
Independent,  was  the  first  to  move  for 
the  formation  of  a  League  to  Enforce 
Peace,  and  has  been  most  diligent  and 


FOREWORD 

effective  in  promoting  the  League  ever 
since. 

The  principles  and  project  of  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace,  as  projected 
by  the  American  Section  of  its  promo- 
ters, are  few  and  simple.  Shortly 
stated,  they  look  to  the  peaceable  pro- 
cedure for  the  hearing  and  decision  of 
all  international  controversies,  to  be  en- 
forced by  the  joint  power  of  the  nations 
of  the  world.  The  force  is  to  be  applied 
in  securing  the  due  process  under  the 
agreements  of  the  League.  It  does  not 
extend  to  the  enforcement  of  the  judg- 
ment or  recommendation  of  compromise 
which  shall  be  the  result  of  the  hearing. 
The  essence  of  the  plan  is  the  delay  and 
deliberation  involved  in  orderly  proced- 
ure for  the  hearing  and  decision  of  the 
controversy.  It  is  thought  that  most 
wars  can  be  avoided  by  such  a  procedure, 
and  the  force  is  to  be  applied  against 
the  premature  hostilities  of  any  nation 
which  violates  its  plighted  faith  under 
the  League  by  beginning  war  before  the 


FOREWORD 

procedure  of  hearing  and  judgment  has 
been  completed. 

Mr.  Marburg,  in  his  first  chapter,  has 
discussed  a  good  many  details  and 
phases  of  the  possible  operation  of  a 
League  to  Enforce  Peace  which  have 
been  considered  by  a  group  of  members 
of  the  League.  As  Mr.  Marburg  has 
taken  pains  to  point  out,  it  is  a  private 
group  and  not  a  committee  of  the 
League.  The  group  itself  holds  the 
view  that  it  is  best  for  the  League  to 
confine  its  authoritative  commitments  to 
the  short  program  of  the  League,  and 
it  has  never  asked  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee to  pass  upon  the  results  of  its 
labour. 

The  resume  which  Mr.  Marburg  has 
given  of  the  growth  of  the  support  of  the 
general  plan  of  the  League  must  become 
more  and  more  useful  as  the  time  ap- 
proaches for  the  consummation  of  the 
purpose  of  the  League.  This  time  can 
not  come  until  Germany,  the  head  and 
front  of  military  autocracy  in  the  world, 


FOREWORD 

shall  have  been  defeated  and  the  power 
of  vicious  militarism  broken.  This  is  a 
condition  precedent  to  any  useful  League 
to  Enforce  Peace.  Experience  shows 
that  the  fundamental  evil  of  military 
autocracy  is  the  theory  that  there  is  no 
international  morality  and  that  no 
sacredness  attaches  to  national  obliga- 
tions when  the  interest  of  the  state  re- 
quires that  the  obligations  shall  be 
broken.  When  such  a  false  and  vicious 
philosophy  is  broken  down  by  a  defeat 
of  the  German  military  caste  in  this  war, 
the  world  will  be  ripe  for  a  League  to 
Enforce  Peace,  because  national  obliga- 
tions will  then  acquire  a  strength  and 
practical  binding  quality  that  will  lead 
all  the  nations  to  rest  reasonably  secure 
in  the  promises  of  their  sister  nations. 

I  hope  that  Mr.  Marburg's  little  book 
will  be  widely  read. 

WM.  H.  TAFT. 

Pointe-a-Pic,  Canada, 
September  6,  1917. 


LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

A  CHAPTER  IN  THE  HISTORY 
OF  THE  MOVEMENT  1 

STRUCK  with  the  benefits  of  politi- 
cal organization  within  the  State, 
thinking  men  have  long  viewed  the  pos- 
sibility of  similar  organization  between 
States;  to  suffer  the  continuance  of  in- 
ternational anarchy  with  its  disastrous 
results  was  a  reflection  on  the  common 
intelligence. 

From  time  to  time  this  consciousness 
has  flowered  in  noble  expression  and  oc- 
casionally in  definite  plans  for  world  or- 
ganization. Men  did  not  question  the 
wisdom  of  the  steps  advocated  by  these 
thinkers.  But  they  looked  about  them 
and  saw  apparently  insurmountable  bar- 
riers of  national  jealousies  and  hate  and 
ambition.  And  the  simple  fact  is  that 
no  body  of  men  in  the  various  nations 
appeared  with  sufficient  vision  and  pur- 


2  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

pose  to  attempt  to  realize  these  projects. 
The  present  movement  for  interna- 
tional justice,  to  be  attained  ultimately 
through  international  organization,  may 
be  said  to  have  had  its  birth  at  the  First 
Hague  Conference  (1899).  While  it  has 
suffered  disappointments,  the  movement 
from  that  day  to  this  has  constantly 
grown,  drawing  within  its  ranks  more 
and  more  thoughtful  men  in  private  sta- 
tion and  an  ever  greater  number  of  men 
in  positions  of  power,  until  today  it 
really  looks  as  if  we  were  on  the  eve  of 
realizing  at  least  the  beginnings  of  a 
true  world  organization.  Are  the  men 
who  have  the  doing  of  this  thing  in  the 
hollow  of  the  hand  to  suffer  the  world 
to  be  again  disappointed?  God  forbid. 


VISAGING    THE    ORGANIZATION    AND 

WORKINGS  OF  A  LEAGUE  OF 

NATIONS  2 

The  brain  centre  of  a  League  of  Na- 
tions will  probably  be  an  executive  body 


THE  ORGANIZATION  3 

(Ministry)  which  will  be  the  source  of 
much  of  the  League's  activity.  Such  a 
body  would  naturally  entertain  com- 
plaints and,  if  unable  itself  to  compose 
the  controversies,  would  pass  them  up  to 
a  World  Court  or  to  a  Council  of  Concili- 
ation accordingly  as  it  judged  them  to 
be  justiciable  questions  or  conflicts  of 
political  policy. 

As  the  Court  would  probably  be  em- 
powered, like  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  of  North  America,  itself  to 
pass  upon  the  question  of  jurisdiction, 
the  Ministry  could  well  afford  to  lean  to- 
ward the  Court  in  making  the  choice  re- 
ferred to,  being  assured  that  if  it  erred 
in  its  choice  the  Court  would  correct  the 
mistake. 

That  which  is  sometimes  termed  "  pre- 
ventive justice  "  could  likewise  be  intro- 
duced through  the  Ministry,  by  charg- 
ing that  body  with  the  important  posi- 
tive function  of  keeping  a  close  watch 
on  both  international  developments  and 
on  internal  dissensions  likely  to  lead  to 


4  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

international  complications.  In  the  lat- 
ter field  its  powers  would,  of  necessity, 
be  purely  facultative,  since  it  is  not  pro- 
posed to  confer  upon  the  League  the 
right  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs 
of  its  members.  Whether  or  not  it 
would  eventually  find  it  necessary,  in  the 
interests  of  the  World's  peace,  to  deal 
more  drastically  with  backward  coun- 
tries is  a  question  which  we  are  not 
called  upon  to  answer  now.  To  its  own 
members  the  League  could  only  suggest 
the  advisability  of  taking  notice  of,  and 
endeavouring  to  allay,  internal  discon- 
tent which  was  likely  to  assume  interna- 
tional aspects,  and  offer  the  services  of 
its  tribunals  and  committees  to  that  end. 

In  all  probability  it  would  likewise  be 
in  the  Ministry  that  most  legislation 
would  originate,  to  be  acted  upon  by  an 
International  Legislative  Assembly.  If 
any  such  function  is  expected  of  it,  the 
members  of  the  Ministry  should  then 
have  seats  in  the  Legislative  Assembly. 

But   the   greatest   responsibility  that 


THE  ORGANIZATION  5 

would  rest  on  a  Ministry  would  be  that 
of  determining  when  a  crisis  had  arisen 
calling  for  the  use  of  force  under  the 
terms  of  the  League  and  of  so  notifying 
the  individual  States  of  the  League, 
leaving  them  to  determine,  each  for  it- 
self, whether  or  not  it  was  prepared  to 
live  up  to  its  obligations  under  the 
treaty.  Such  a  situation  would  be  par- 
allel to  that  in  which  the  United  States 
Congress  would  find  itself  if  called  upon 
by  the  President  to  act  under  the  treaty 
by  which  the  United  States  has  guaran- 
teed the  integrity  of  Cuba :  the  Congress 
alone,  under  the  Constitution,  may  de- 
clare war,  and  when  the  conditions  con- 
templated by  the  treaty  have  arisen  the 
Executive  Branch  of  the  Government 
must  await  the  pleasure  of  the  Congress 
before  it  can  make  war  in  fulfilment  of 
the  country's  treaty  obligations. 

A  decision  by  the  Ministry  of  the 
League  such  as  is  here  contemplated 
must  necessarily  be  swift  and  immediate, 
for  war,  once  begun  in  earnest,  is  hard 


6  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

to  stay.  And,  as  prompt  decision  can 
be  expected  ordinarily  only  from  small 
bodies  of  men,  the  numbers  composing 
the  Ministry  must  not  be  large.  It  has 
been  suggested  that  it  should  be  ap- 
pointed by  and  out  of  the  proposed 
Council  of  Conciliation,  which  itself 
would  embrace  only  men  of  "  wide  experi- 
ence and  of  marked  discretion  and  abil- 
ity," and  that  it  should  consist  of  five 
members.  It  would  seem  that  five  is  not 
too  small  a  number  to  insure  deliberation 
nor  too  large  to  prevent  prompt  decision 
in  an  emergency.  The  failure  of  most 
councils  that  have  sat  in  international 
crises  in  the  past  has  been  due  to  their 
inability  to  agree  promptly  on  a  line  of 
action.  Such  disagreement  has  been  so 
common  that  nations  aggressively  dis- 
posed have  come  to  count  upon  it.  As 
the  chief  aim  of  the  rudimentary  organ- 
ization of  states  which  it  is  now  pro- 
posed to  set  up  as  an  entering  wedge  in 
the  present  senseless  block  of  interna- 
tional anarchy  is  to  prevent  war  before 


THE  ORGANIZATION  7 

there  has  been  a  hearing  of  the  dispute, 
it  is  of  foremost  importance  that  the 
machinery  designed  to  accomplish  this 
object  should  be  effective.  It  cannot  be 
effective  unless  the  responsibility  for  de- 
termining the  moment  when  the  League 
is  called  upon  to  use  force  rests  with  a 
small  body  of  men,  not  diplomats  but 
statesmen  who  have  had  wide  experience, 
the  very  foremost  men  in  their  respective 
countries  —  so  far  as  possible,  men  who 
enjoy  the  confidence  not  only  of  their 
fellow  countrymen  but  of  the  world.  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  name  such  men 
today  from  each  of  several  of  the  Great 
Powers  and  from  some  of  the  Secondary 
Powers  as  well. 

If  Europe  had  had  sitting  perma- 
nently, say  at  the  capital  of  some  small 
country,  a  group  of  men  of  this  kind, 
charged  with  the  duty  of  watching 
closely  international  events,  gathering 
knowledge  of  local  difficulties  and  na- 
tional aims,  legitimate  and  other,  and 
charged  too  with  the  duty  of  recom- 


8  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

mending  promptly  a  solution  of  disputes 
as  they  arose, —  such  solution  as  their 
experience  and  knowledge  suggested  and 
would  have  given  especial  value  to, —  is 
there  any  doubt  that  it  would  have  wit- 
nessed fewer  wars? 

COUNCIL    OF    CONCILIATION 

Co-operating  with  the  Ministry,  the 
source  of  its  strength  and  of  its  author- 
ity, there  must  be  a  larger  body,  com- 
posed of  representatives  of  the  States  of 
the  League.  This  body,  it  has  been  sug- 
gested, should  be  styled  "  Council  of 
Conciliation,"  since  one  of  its  important 
functions  will  be  to  compose  conflicts  of 
political  policy  with  which  a  Court  is 
not  expected  to  deal.  It  should  be 
vested  with  the  power  of  injunction  be- 
cause in  matters  of  vital  importance  na- 
tions will  not  abstain  from  taking  the 
case  in  their  own  hands  —  will  refuse  to 
refer  it  to  enquiry  involving  possibly  a 
full  year's  delay  —  unless  they  can  be 
assured  that  the  offending  Nation  will  be 


THE  ORGANIZATION  9 

estopped  meanwhile  from  proceeding 
with  the  objectionable  act.  The  Court 
would  naturally  enjoy  this  same  power 
in  cases  within  its  jurisdiction. 

The  Council  of  Conciliation,  like  its 
committee,  the  Ministry,  ought  to  have  a 
permanent  seat  and  a  secretariat.  It  is 
likewise  the  best  body  to  entrust  with  the 
duty  of  making  rules  for  the  League  un- 
der the  constitution  in  the  sense  in  which 
a  Department  of  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment makes  rules  under  the  law.  The 
making  of  international  law  proper 
should  be  in  the  hands  of  a  still  larger 
body  representing  the  whole  world  and 
not  simply  the  members  of  the  League, 
since  it  will  be  law  for  the  world.  Here 
too,  however,  the  Council  of  Conciliation 
and  its  committee,  the  Ministry,  may 
properly  play  an  important  part  in 
recommending,  and  actually  initiating, 
measures  in  the  Legislative  Assembly. 
The  time  of  the  Council  would  probably 
be  given  up  largely  to  such  matters, 
actual  controversies  referred  to  it  being 


10          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

entrusted  by  it  to  subcommittees,  fluctu- 
ating in  personnel,  or  to  a  subcommittee 
of  fixed  personnel,  as  may  be  found  wis- 
est. 

A  matter  of  importance,  one  around 
which  there  is  likely  to  be  considerable 
discussion,  is  the  composition  of  a  body 
endowed  with  such  great  powers.  Shall 
the  Council  be  constituted  on  the  princi- 
ple of  the  equality  of  States,  or  shall  the 
larger  and  more  powerful  countries  have 
larger  representation?  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  the  leading  Powers  may  be 
able  to  supply  more  men  of  the  high  type 
called  for  by  the  important  duties  resting 
on  the  Council.  Furthermore,  if  the 
League  is  called  upon  to  use  force,  the 
burden  of  the  operations  will  naturally 
fall  on  the  Great  Powers  who  have  the 
equipment.  Will  they  not  therefore  in- 
sist on  control  of  the  Council?  It  is  the 
Great  Powers  who  actually  make  war,  as 
we  know  it  today,  though  the  smaller 
Powers,  particularly  the  backward  ones, 
may  be  instrumental  in  bringing  it  on. 


THE  ORGANIZATION  11 

This  question  is  not  simple.  The  con- 
clusion of  several  important  groups  is 
that  the  principle  of  equality  should  gov- 
ern in  the  selection  of  the  Council,  and 
that  for  a  time  at  least  it  is  unlikely  to 
give  rise  to  complications,  since  the 
League,  at  the  start,  will  be  confined 
largely  to  the  Great  Powers,  with  a  few 
only  of  the  Secondary  Powers  added.  If 
the  backward  nations  are  excluded,  full 
representation  of  the  Secondary  Powers 
in  the  Council  ought  not  to  offer  obsta- 
cles to  its  successful  working.  An  analy- 
sis of  their  aims  and  of  the  motives  gov- 
erning their  conduct  in  general  would 
lead  rather  to  the  opposite  conclusion: 
the  conclusion  that  their  presence  in  the 
Council  would  really  make  for  justice 
and  moderation. 

Changes  in  the  constitution  of  the 
League  may  well  originate  by  resolution 
of  the  Council,  subject  to  approval  or  re- 
jection by  a  fixed  proportion,  more 
than  a  bare  majority,  of  the  States  of 
the  League.  No  constitutional  change 


12          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

and  no  war  measure  should  be  voted  by 
the  Council  unless  such  measure  has  the 
approval,  say,  of  four-fifths  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Great  Powers.  Such  a 
provision  would  prevent  the  smaller  Pow- 
ers from  crowding  into  the  League  and 
from  thus  overwhelming  the  voice  of  the 
Great  Powers  in  the  Council. 

THE    INTERNATIONAL    COTJKT    OF    JUSTICE 

The  suggestion  that  the  Draft  Con- 
vention for  the  Court  of  Arbitral  Justice 
accepted  in  principle  by  the  Second 
Hague  Conference  would  serve  as  the 
basis  for  the  proposed  International 
Court  of  Justice  under  a  league  of  na- 
tions has  met  with  criticism  from  several 
important  quarters.  The  Court  which 
that  Convention  provided  was  thought  to 
be  inadequate  to  the  needs  of  the  League. 
There  has  followed  a  full  discussion  of 
the  problem  resulting  in  the  elaboration 
of  complete  provisions  designed  to  give 
the  world  a  true  international  court  of 
justice  in  connection  with  a  league  of  na- 


THE  ORGANIZATION  13 

tions  or  independently  of  it,  should  the 
latter  project  unhappily  fail  of  realiza- 
tion.3 

Be  it  remembered  at  the  outset  that 
it  is  not  thought  wise,  in  the  present 
stage  of  world  opinion,  to  endow  an 
international  court  with  power  to  en- 
force its  judgments.  Such  power  may 
come  to  the  Court  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  but  it  is  believed  that  at  present 
the  Great  Powers  are  not  ready  to  ac- 
cept a  proposal  which  would  make  it 
possible  for  a  judicial  tribunal,  with 
power  to  pass  upon  the  question  of  its 
own  jurisdiction,  to  pronounce  conclu- 
sively on  disputes  involving  vital  in- 
terests. It  is  proposed  that  the  Court 
should  consist  of  fifteen  judges,  not  more 
than  two  of  whom  should  be  connected 
with  any  one  country,  but  that  they 
may  be  taken  even  from  non-contracting 
States.  The  appointments  should  be  for 
life,  with  optional  retirement  on  pension 
at  the  age  of  seventy. 

Few  questions  connected  with  the  set- 


14          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ting  up  of  an  international  court  have 
proved  in  practice  more  difficult  of  solu- 
tion than  that  of  the  composition  of  the 
Court.  The  discussions  at  the  Second 
Hague  Conference  disclosed  great  diver- 
sity of  opinion  on  this  subject,  the 
smaller  States  preventing  an  agreement 
by  insisting  on  full  representation  on  the 
Court,  that  which  would  have  produced 
an  assembly  of  forty-five  in  lieu  of  a 
court.  But  for  the  difficulty  of  solving 
this  problem  the  Court  of  Arbitral  Jus- 
tice would  have  come  into  being  long 
since. 

That  which  is  now  proposed  is  that 
the  judges  for  the  International  Court  of 
Justice  should  be  chosen  by  an  assembly 
of  judicial  electors  appointed  by  the  con- 
tracting Powers,  each  Power  being  en- 
titled to  three  electors.  One  judgeship 
should  be  filled  at  a  time,  the  assembly 
remaining  in  session  until  the  membership 
of  the  Court  has  been  completed.  It  is 
suggested  that  nominations  should  be 
made  not  only  by  the  judicial  electors 


THE  ORGANIZATION  15 

themselves,  who  will  no  doubt  represent 
the  views  of  their  respective  Govern- 
ments, but  also  by  national  and  interna- 
tional societies  of  jurists,  the  persons 
nominated  in  the  latter  manner  to  be 
deemed  candidates  when  their  nomination 
has  been  communicated  by  any  high  offi- 
cial of  one  of  the  contracting  Powers. 
It  should  be  possible  for  the  Assembly  of 
Judicial  Electors  to  adopt  a  preferential 
system  of  voting;  but  in  the  absence  of 
such  a  provision  no  candidate  should  be 
declared  elected  unless  he  receives  an  ab- 
solute majority  of  the  votes  cast. 

To  fill  vacancies  in  the  Court  by  call- 
ing together  again  this  Assembly  of  Ju- 
dicial Electors  from  all  parts  of  the 
earth,  mayhap  at  short  intervals,  would 
be  too  cumbersome;  so  it  is  believed  best 
to  leave  to  the  judicial  electors  them- 
selves, who  are  to  be  a  continuing  body 
of  changing  personnel,  the  determination 
of  this  question.  But  in  cases  of  im- 
peachment the  electors  should  meet  and 
no  judge  be  removable  except  by  an  abso- 


16  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

lute  majority  of  those  present  and  vot- 
ing. 

As  to  the  competence  and  procedure  of 
the  Court,  it  is  felt  that  the  contracting 
Powers  should  agree  to  submit  to  it  all 
controversies  of  a  justiciable  nature  not 
made  the  subject  of  other  peaceful  dis- 
position. 

Even  non-contracting  Powers  should 
be  encouraged  to  bring  their  cases  to  the 
Court  and  its  jurisdiction  should  extend 
not  only  to  these  but  likewise  to  disputes 
between  a  corporation  and  a  State,  or 
solely  between  corporations  provided  the 
dispute  be  of  international  consequence. 
It  is  realized  that  an  international  court 
will  be  called  upon  to  deal  with  various 
systems  of  law ;  but  it  is  thought  possible 
to  cover  this  point  by  specifying  that  the 
Court  shall  apply  the  doctrines  of  law 
which  "  the  contracting  Powers  may  pro- 
vide or  the  litigants  agree  upon,"  failing 
which  it  shall  be  free  to  follow  its  own 
theory  of  justice  subject  to  the  doctrines 
already  established  by  international  law 


THE  ORGANIZATION  17 

as     found    in     the    various     recognized 
sources. 

Growth  of  law  would  be  promoted  by 
following  the  practice  of  accompanying 
the  decree,  itself  in  writing,  with  a  written 
opinion,  bearing  the  name  of  the  judge 
by  whom  it  was  prepared,  and  giving  the 
reasoning  on  which  the  decision  is  based. 
It  is  believed  that  when  their  names  ap- 
pear in  connection  with  decisions  judges 
attach  greater  importance  to  their  la- 
bours. There  is  then  added  to  the  natu- 
rally conscientious  discharge  of  their  du- 
ties the  personal  element  of  regard  for 
their  own  future  reputations.  The  pub- 
lication of  a  dissenting  opinion  is  ob- 
jected to  on  the  ground  that  even  though 
the  judgment  of  the  majority  judges, 
which  is  the  authoritative  judgment, 
"  were  also  a  true  and  righteous  judg- 
ment," nevertheless,  owing  possibly  to  the 
cleverness  of  the  minority  judges  who 
would  naturally  do  their  best  to  present 
their  views  forcibly,  "  the  reasonableness 
and  persuasiveness  of  the  dissenting  opin- 


18  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ion  "  might  be  such  as  to  throw  discredit 
on  the  majority  opinion.  The  judges 
should  reside  permanently  at  the  seat  of 
the  Court.  They  would  constitute  a 
learned  group  whose  interests  would  be 
similar  and  great  benefit  would  result 
from  their  constant  intercourse. 

In  order  to  promote  resort  to  the 
Court  non-contracting  Powers  should 
not  be  chargeable  with  any  of  the  costs. 
A  sense  of  right  will  lead  them  in  due 
time  to  adhere  to  the  Convention  and 
assume  their  share  of  the  burden  of  main- 
taining the  Court  if  impelled  to  use  it. 

INTERNATIONAL  LEGISLATIVE   ASSEMBLY 

Exclusion  of  backward  countries  from 
a  league  of  nations  will  naturally  be  re- 
sented by  them,  as  few  countries  will  be 
ready  to  admit  that  they  belong  in  that 
category.  This  difficulty  might  be  met 
to  a  certain  extent,  though  not  overcome, 
by  inviting  them  to  send  representatives 
at  stated  intervals  to  sit  with  the  Council 


THE  ORGANIZATION  19 

of  Conciliation,  with  the  right  to  be  heard 
by  it  but  without  a  vote.  Such  a  pro- 
vision would  supply  the  means  of  their 
getting  their  grievances  before  the 
League  of  Nations  and  of  facilitating,  at 
the  same  time,  the  discharge  of  the  duty 
imposed  on  the  Ministry  to  watch  and 
forestall  unfavourable  international  de- 
velopments whether  within  or  without  the 
League. 

The  principal  means  of  reconciling  the 
backward  countries,  however,  to  their  ex- 
clusion from  membership  in  the  League 
would  be  to  admit  them  to  the  Interna- 
tional Legislative  Assembly.  They  ought 
to  be  there  —  all  nations  ought  to  be 
there  —  because  the  enactments  of  that 
body,  in  the  absence  of  a  veto  within  a 
given  period  of  time,  are  supposed  to  bind 
not  only  the  States  of  the  League  but  to 
be  true  international  law  which  the  whole 
world  is  bound  to  respect. 

It  is  suggested  that  the  basis  of  repre- 
sentation in  the  Legislative  Assembly 


20  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

should  be  units  of  population  supple- 
mented by  additional  representation  on 
the  basis  of  units  of  commerce. 

Numerous  plans  have  been  presented 
to  the  world  from  time  to  time,  some  ex- 
ceedingly elaborate,  aiming  to  give  to 
each  nation  such  representation  in  an  in- 
ternational assembly  as  its  importance 
entitles  it  to.  The  facts  on  which  these 
plans  are  based  are  difficult  of  exact  as- 
certainment and  the  many  elements  en- 
tering into  the  calculation  make  it  very 
complex.  They  satisfy  no  one.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  manifestly  unfair  to  em- 
ploy population  as  the  sole  basis  of 
representation  among  nations  varying 
greatly  in  political  power  and  in  activity 
in  international  intercourse. 

By  including  the  single  additional  ele- 
ment of  commerce,  which  usually  runs 
parallel  with  progress  in  other  directions, 
we  correct  this  injustice  in  large  measure 
and  at  the  same  time  offer  a  compara- 
tively simple  basis  of  calculation. 

It  is  desirable  that  the  Legislative  As- 


THE  ORGANIZATION  21 

sembly,  while  thus  composed  of  repre- 
sentatives of  all  nations  —  we  might  des- 
ignate them  specifically  as  the  nations 
which  were  invited  to  participate  in  the 
Second  Hague  Conference  —  should  be 
under  the  guidance  of  the  League,  and  to 
that  end  should  be  called  and  dissolved  by 
the  League,  the  latter's  Ministry,  as 
above  indicated,  having  seats  in  the  As- 
sembly and  being  made  largely  responsi- 
ble for  initiating  measures. 

As  provided  in  the  platform  of  the 
American  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  the 
acts  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  should 
be  binding  on  each  participant  unless  re- 
jected by  it  within  a  stated  period.  One 
year  is  probably  sufficient  time  to  allow 
for  a  nation  to  make  up  its  mind  on  any 
subject  likely  to  be  brought  before  it  in 
this  way.  The  need  of  some  such  provi- 
sion is  shown  by  the  failure  of  signatories 
to  various  Hague  and  other  international 
conventions  to  ratify  them,  leaving  na- 
tions which  have  ratified  them  in  the  posi- 
tion of  having  signed  a  contract,  which,  it 


22          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

is  true,  is  not  binding  as  against  the  par- 
ties who  have  failed  to  ratify,  but  which 
may  become  binding  against  such  parties 
at  any  moment  that  they  choose  to  rat- 
ify. Again,  the  difficulty  of  keeping 
track  of  such  ratifications  is  very  great 
for  the  public  and  not  inconsiderable  for 
Governments.  In  time  of  war  the  vary- 
ing obligations  of  belligerents  to  each 
other,  owing  to  this  same  fact,  lead  to 
actual  confusion.  Much  of  this  will  be 
avoided  by  the  provision  recommended. 

In  course  of  time  the  Legislative  As- 
sembly, perpetuating  the  work  both  of 
the  Interparliamentary  Union,  which  has 
originated  so  many  useful  measures,  and 
of  the  Hague  Peace  Conference,  which 
turned  them  and  many  more  of  its  own 
devising  into  law,  should  prove  to  be  one 
of  the  most  useful  of  the  institutions 
which  the  plans  for  a  league  of  nations 
contemplate.  In  the  beginning  it  will 
probably  lack  power  and  even  authority, 
and  its  activities  may  for  a  time  be  con- 
fined to  the  kind  of  work  the  Hague  Con- 


A  BIT  OF  BACKGROUND        23 

ference  has  been  doing.  Ultimately,  if 
its  work  inspires  sufficient  confidence  to 
lead  the  Powers  to  institute  annual  ses- 
sions, it  will  not  only  develop  and  formu- 
late international  law,  but  should  grow 
into  a  true  regulating,  if  not  an  actual 
governing,  body,  to  the  marked  promo- 
tion of  justice  in  the  conduct  of  nations 
toward  one  another. 

II 

A  BIT  OF  BACKGROUND 

On  Jan.  31,  1910,  William  Howard 
Taft,  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  addressed  the  following  letter  to 
the  author  of  this  volume: 

"  I  have  learned  with  interest  of  the 
plans  to  found  an  '  American  Societv  for 
Judicial  Settlement  of  International  Dis- 
putes.' 

"  The  leaflets  which  you  propose  to  pub- 
lish, together  with  the  meetings  of  national 
scope  which  you  are  planning  to  hold  from 
time  to  time,  may  have  a  very  great  influ- 


24          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ence  on  the  development  of  public  opinion 
on  this  important  subject.  If  the  proposed 
Court  of  Arbitral  Justice  at  The  Hague 
becomes  an  accomplished  fact  there  will 
still  remain  the  task  of  securing  the  adhe- 
sion of  a  number  of  Powers  to  the  Court, 
and  the  very  important  task  of  so  cultivat- 
ing opinion  in  various  countries  as  to  in- 
cline Governments  to  resort  to  the  Court 
when  occasion  calls  for  it.  There  is  no 
other  single  way  in  which  the  cause  of 
peace  and  disarmament  can  be  so  effect- 
ively promoted  as  by  the  firm  establishment 
of  a  permanent  international  Court  of  Jus- 
tice." 

Armed  with  this  endorsement  and  sup- 
ported further  by  the  active  sympa- 
thy of  men  like  Elihu  Root,  the  former 
Secretary  of  State,  and  Philander  C. 
Knox,  the  then  Secretary  of  State,  a 
group  of  men  formed  the  above-named 
Society  in  February,  1910.  Mr.  Taft 
accepted  the  honourary  presidency  of  it 
and  his  active  interest  in  the  cause  of 
a  better  world  organization  has  grown 


A  BIT  OF  BACKGROUND        25 

steadily  ever  since.  The  great  arbitra- 
tion treaties  negotiated  under  him  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  and  between  France  and  the 
United  States,  but  which,  unhappily, 
failed  of  confirmation  by  the  United 
States  Senate,  were  the  direct  outcome 
of  this  movement. 

At  a  dinner  of  the  Society  at  Wash- 
ington on  Dec.  17,  1910,  Mr.  Taft  said: 
"If  now  we  can  negotiate  and  put 
through  a  positive  agreement  with  some 
great  nation  to  abide  the  adjudication  of 
an  international  arbitral  court  in  every 
issue  which  cannot  be  settled  by  nego- 
tiation, no  matter  what  it  involves, 
whether  honour,  territory,  or  money,  we 
shall  have  made  a  long  step  forward  by 
demonstrating  that  it  is  possible  for 
two  nations  at  least  to  establish  as  be- 
tween them  the  same  system  of  due  proc- 
ess of  law  that  exists  between  individu- 
als under  a  government." 

At  his  side  happened  to  be  the  French 
Ambassador.  When  Mr.  Taft  sat  down 


26          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

M.  Jusserand  turned  to  him  and  said, 
"  Do  you  mean  what  you  say  ?  "  And  on 
receiving  an  affirmative  reply  he  pro- 
ceeded :  "  I  will  take  you  at  your  word 
and  we  will  negotiate  such  a  treaty  be- 
tween your  country  and  my  own." 

A  campaign  of  education  conducted 
throughout  the  country  in  the  interest  of 
these  treaties  awakened  the  minds  of 
many  people  to  the  importance  of  put- 
ting an  end  to  the  intolerable  lack  of 
organization  in  international  affairs. 
There  was  but  little  dissent  in  the  coun- 
try at  large  to  the  principles  embodied 
in  these  treaties.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
if  a  referendum  had  been  instituted  the 
treaties  would  have  been  overwhelmingly 
endorsed  by  the  American  people.  Un- 
fortunately, as  repeated  incidents  in  its 
history  show,  the  United  States  Senate 
is  not  responsive  to  public  sentiment.  It 
was  intended  by  the  founders  of  our 
Government  to  be  the  conservative 
branch  of  the  Legislature,  designed  to 
withstand  the  emotional  will  of  the  peo- 


A  BIT  OF  BACKGROUND        27 

pie  and  to  register  the  informed  will  of 
the  people.  In  course  of  time  it  has 
come  to  ignore  both.  Its  actions  have 
repeatedly  illustrated  the  truth  of  this 
statement  but  never  more  plainly  than 
in  connection  with  the  arbitration  treat- 
ies in  question.  The  vote  of  the  Sen- 
ate on  these  treaties  shows  only  three 
Senators  of  the  opposition  party  favour- 
ing them,  while  the  vote  of  the  Adminis- 
tration party  was  almost  solidly  in  fa- 
vour of  them.  As  there  is  nothing  what- 
ever in  the  tenets  of  what  was  then  the 
opposition  party  —  the  Democratic  — 
against  which  these  treaties  militated,  the 
motive  for  the  vote  of  the  Senate  cannot 
be  interpreted  as  any  other  than  parti- 
san :  a  refusal,  on  the  eve  of  an  elec- 
tion, to  confer  upon  the  Administration 
the  prestige  that  would  have  attached  to 
the  consummation  of  these  great  treaties. 
But  truth  is  a  root  with  long  fibres. 
Cut  away  the  stalk  and,  unless  hostile 
powers  are  constantly  on  the  watch,  new 
shoots  are  apt  to  appear.  Turning  the 


28          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

attention  of  the  country  in  this  direction 
made  possible  the  adoption  of  the  useful 
Bryan  Treaties  for  obligatory  inquiry, 
of  which  more  than  thirty  have  been 
negotiated  between  the  United  States 
and  foreign  countries.  It  greatly  in- 
creased the  influence  of  the  Judicial  Set- 
tlement Society.  It  gave  new  stimulus 
to  the  endeavour  to  erect  a  World  Court. 
It  rendered  numbers  of  men  more  in- 
formed and  more  ready  for  this  new 
movement  which  sprang  up  spontane- 
ously in  the  first  months  succeeding  the 
outbreak  of  the  Great  War,  namely,  the 
movement  for  a  league  of  nations  to  dis- 
courage future  wars. 

Ill 

THE  BACKWARD  NATION 

In  1912  the  author  was  privileged  to 
print  a  magazine  article  4  which  pointed 
to  the  insecurity  of  life  and  property  in 
backward  countries  as  "  an  ever-present 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world  "  and 


THE  BACKWARD  NATION       29 

dealt  with  the  problem  of  finding  "  some 
means  of  sowing  the  seed  of  progress  and 
civilization  throughout  the  world  without 
the  sacrifice  of  life  and  the  injustice 
which  war  involves."  It  suggested  that 
the  solution  might  be  found  "  in  the  joint 
action  of  all  the  enlightened  Powers  of 
the  world,  big  and  little,  to  secure  equal 
rights  and  political  liberty  .  .  .  for  the 
European  races  in  backward  lands." 
The  instrumentality  suggested  was  "  a 
commission  appointed  jointly  by  the 
chancelleries  of  such  Powers."  Security 
against  the  triumph  of  selfish  interests 
would  be  found  "  in  the  extent  of  the  con- 
certed action  now  proposed  in  contrast 
to  the  limited  number  of  Powers  that 
have  participated  in  similar  leagues  here- 
tofore." To  accomplish  this  the  League 
must  embrace  "  not  only  the  eight  lead- 
ing Powers,  but  ...  all  the  Powers 
where  there  are  just  laws  administered 
with  a  fair  approximation  to  justice. 
.  .  .  One  cannot  but  feel  that  substan- 
tial justice  would  be  done  by  it,  just  as 


30          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

substantial  justice  is  done  by  the  Federal 
Government  of  the  United  States  to  the 
individual  communities  embraced  within 
the  scope  of  its  activities. 

"  If  we  agree  to  that  statement  —  if 
we  agree  that  the  united  will  of  all  the 
enlightened  Powers,  acting  through  the 
commission,  would  result  in  substantial 
justice,  then  the  main  criticism  of  the 
project  falls." 

The  view  was  expressed  that  "  the  po- 
tential force  latent  in  such  a  concert 
of  Powers  need  seldom  translate  itself 
into  war.  .  .  . 

*'  At  present  one  country  alone  or  a 
small  group  of  countries  intervenes  and 
actually  administers  the  government  of 
a  backward  country  for  a  shorter  or  a 
longer  period.  The  United  States  ad- 
ministered Cuba  until  the  Cubans  showed 
signs  of  being  able  to  maintain  an  or- 
derly government.  When,  under  the  in- 
dependent government  then  set  up,  an- 
archical conditions  returned,  the  United 
States  entered  the  island  a  second  time 


THE  BACKWARD  NATION       31 

and  administered  it  until  there  was  assur- 
ance that  the  voice  of  the  Cuban  people 
would  be  respected  at  the  polls.  It  then 
again  withdrew.  Such  fortitude  and  re- 
sistance to  temptation  are  unusual  in 
history.  Neither  the  European  nations 
nor  we  ourselves  can  be  counted  upon 
generally  to  exercise  them.  If,  now,  in- 
tervention on  the  part  of  a  single  coun- 
try or  of  a  small  group  of  countries 
should  come  at  the  mandate  of  all  the 
enlightened  Powers,  is  there  not  a  much 
greater  likelihood  that  the  temptation  to 
remain  will  be  resisted,  and  that  there- 
fore the  national  life  of  the  small  Pow- 
ers will  in  the  end  be  more  secure  than 
at  present?  " 

In  commenting  upon  the  suggestion, 
Prof.  H.  F.  Guggenheim  of  Cambridge 
said:  "No  international  war  is  likely 
to  be  carried  on  without  either  real  or 
imaginary  anticipation  of  some  gain» 
And  the  backward  nation  today  presents 
the  only  possibility  for  a  profitable  war." 
He  expressed  the  view  that  the  sugges- 


32           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

tion  "  cannot  be  too  seriously  consid- 
ered." 

Count  Albert  Apponyi  said  of  the 
plan :  "  It  will  probably  secure  peace 
in  most  cases  because  no  backward  na- 
tion would  dare  resist  the  joint  applica- 
tions of  so  many  Powers  and  because  the 
particularly  interested  ones  among  the 
latter  would  be  prevented  from  quarrel- 
ling about  their  claims,  the  whole  ques- 
tion being  lifted  up  into  the  higher  do- 
main of  principle." 

The  comment  of  Prince  di  Cassano  of 
Rome  contains  the  following  passage: 
"  What  we  want  is  a  committee  of  ab- 
solutely free  men  —  free  of  mind,  free 
of  interest  —  who  shall  act  as  an  in- 
ternational jury  d'honneur  first  of  all 
to  enlighten  public  opinion  and  after- 
wards to  obtain  justice  and  fair  treat- 
ment." 

Charles  Francis  Adams'  observations 
on  the  plan  pictured  the  actual  working 
of  it  as  follows :  "  The  issue  presented 
would,  of  course,  first  be  formulated  by 


THE  BACKWARD  NATION       33 

one  or  more  of  the  Powers  in  question. 
It  would  then  be  submitted  to  a  tribu- 
nal in  the  nature  of  that  at  The  Hague. 
The  backward  nation  in  question  would 
then  be  invited  to  appear  before  this 
tribunal.  The  tribunal  would  in  due 
process  make  its  report ;  and  it  would 
be  communicated  to  all  the  parties  it 
represented,  together  with  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  tribunal  as  to  how  its 
report  and  recommendations  should  be 
made  effective.  It  seems  to  me  the  world 
has  now  advanced  to  that  point  when 
such  a  mandate,  properly  expressed,  in  a 
firm  but  kindly  way,  would  work  its  own 
results.  Should  it  fail  to  do  so,  the 
question  of  its  enforcement  through  the 
joint  action  of  the  Powers  from  which 
the  complaint  had  emanated  would  pre- 
sent itself.  It  would  then  become  a 
practical  question  which  would  call  into 
operation  the  diplomatic  agencies  and  the 
capacity,  so  to  speak,  of  '  getting  there  ' 
on  the  part  of  the  tribunal.  On  this 
head  no  general  rules  could  be  laid  down ; 


34  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

but  the  problem  must  be  worked  out  in 
an  effective  manner  through  the  good 
judgment  and  the  capacity  for  accom- 
plishing results  of  those  in  charge.  In 
this,  as  in  other  things,  something  must 
be  left  to  time  and  the  process  of  natural 
development." 

IV 

VEERING  OF  OPINION 

All  the  existing  institutions  at  The 
Hague  are  voluntary :  that  is  to  say,  na- 
tions may  or  may  not  resort  to  them,  as 
they  see  fit.  The  advocates  of  the  new 
World  Court  provided  for  by  The  Hague 
Convention  under  the  name  of  the  Court 
of  Arbitral  Justice  almost  to  a  man  be- 
lieved that  this  new  institution  should 
likewise  be  purely  voluntary  in  charac- 
ter. They  discouraged  the  idea  of  the 
use  of  force  to  hale  nations  into  Court, 
or  to  execute  the  judgment  of  the  Court, 
as  not  only  unnecessary  but  harmful. 
Men  pointed  to  a  whole  series  of  arbi- 


VEERING  OF  OPINION          35 

trations  through  the  greater  part  of  a 
century,  none  of  which  had  been  thrown 
down  by  the  refusal  of  one  party  alone 
to  abide  by  the  award,  and  asserted  that 
the  sense  of  honourable  obligation, 
backed  by  the  pressure  of  public  opinion, 
was  sufficient  not  only  to  insure  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  awards  of  international 
tribunals  but  to  lead  the  progressive  na- 
tions habitually  to  resort  to  this  method 
of  settling  disputes  in  lieu  of  war.  True, 
in  the  past  few  years,  several  of  the 
backward  countries  of  Latin  America 
had  thrown  down  arbitrations,  thus 
breaking  the  splendid  record  of  a  cen- 
tury. But  it  was  felt  that  this  illus- 
trated less  a  failure  of  principle  than 
the  actual  condition  of  the  peoples  in 
question,  peoples  who  ought  never  to 
have  been  expected  to  apply  successfully 
such  advanced  methods. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  present 
war  this  reliance  on  voluntary  institu- 
tions suffered  a  fatal  shock.  It  was 
plain  that  the  efforts  of  the  Entente  to 


36          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

refer  the  Austro-Serbian  dispute  to  a 
conference,  efforts  initiated  by  Viscount 
(then  Sir  Edward)  Grey  and  supple- 
mented by  France,  Italy  and  Russia, 
were  brought  to  nought  by  Germany 
simply  because  Germany  had  decided 
that  the  time  was  ripe  once  again  to  set 
in  motion  its  great  military  machine, 
and  that  it  had  selected  a  moment  to 
precipitate  war  when  it  was  Austria's 
quarrel  so  that  Austria  could  be  counted 
upon  with  certainty  as  an  ally. 

An  important  line  of  progress  in  the 
history  of  war  has  been  the  tendency  to 
spare  the  non-combatant  and  confine  the 
conflict  to  the  armed  forces  of  the  bel- 
ligerents. These  helpful  rules  of  war, 
so  painfully  bought  by  experience  and 
laboriously  worked  out  through  genera- 
tions of  endeavour,  Germany  threw  to 
the  winds.  And  she  did  not  stop  there. 
Deeds  which  men,  relying  upon  the  com- 
mon dictates  of  humanity,  thought  it 
wholly  unnecessary  specifically  to  forbid, 


VEERING  OF  OPINION          3? 

were  done,  not  in  the  heat  of  battle,  but 
deliberately  as  part  of  a  conscious  pol- 
icy. 

To  many  men  the  crimes  committed  in 
this  war,  the  very  assault  itself,  were,  be- 
fore the  event,  simply  unthinkable.  The 
whole  philanthropic  movement  of  the 
twentieth  century  and  the  advanced  out- 
look of  men  seemed  to  belie  their  possi- 
bility. This  made  the  shock  only  the 
greater  when  the  scales  fell  from  men's 
eyes.  Many  men  who  had  hitherto  op- 
posed the  use  of  force  in  the  relations  of 
States  were  at  once  convinced  that  it 
must,  after  all,  be  injected  into  interna- 
tional institutions. 

The  League  to  Enforce  Peace  owes 
its  existence  to  that  change  of  attitude. 
The  men  working  with  the  Judicial  Set- 
tlement Society  and  men  outside  of  its 
ranks  who  had  shown  an  active  interest 
in  a  better  international  organization 
joined  hands  in  the  endeavour  to  make  a 
repetition  of  such  an  assault  on  the 


38  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

world's   peace   more   difficult   in   future. 

Prominent  in  the  latter  group  was  Mr. 
Hamilton  Holt.  In  May,  1911,  Mr. 
Holt  had  read  a  paper  at  Baltimore 
on  the  subject  of  a  league  of  peace.5  As 
originally  drafted,  the  paper  embraced 
the  sanction  of  force.  That  feature  was 
omitted  after  consultation  by  its  author 
with  the  leading  proponents  of  a  World 
Court  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  put 
their  faith  in  the  development  of  volun- 
tary institutions  in  the  belief  that  na- 
tions would  use  them  without  other  in- 
ducement than  a  clear-eyed  perception 
of  their  own  interests. 

The  main  recommendations  then  left 
in  Mr.  Holt's  paper  related  to  an  obli- 
gation on  the  part  of  the  League  to  ar- 
bitrate "  all  disputes  of  whatsoever 
character,"  to  use  the  Hague  Court  or 
such  other  similar  tribunals  as  may  be 
constituted,  and  to  institute  "  a  period- 
ical convention  or  assembly  to  make  all 
rules  for  the  League,  such  rules  to  be- 
come law  unless  vetoed  by  a  nation  within 


VEERING  OF  OPINION          39 

a  stated  period."  There  was  to  be  no 
attempt  to  limit  armaments. 

The  paper  excited  only  academic  in- 
terest. There  was  no  endeavour  on  the 
part  of  individuals  or  groups  to  realize 
the  plan.  The  Secretary  of  State,  Mr. 
Knox,  had  already  suggested,  in  the  pre- 
vious year,  that  the  time  would  come 
"  when  the  nations  of  the  world  shall 
realize  a  federation  as  real  and  vital  as 
that  now  subsisting  between  the  compo- 
nent parts  of  a  single  State."  6 

As  early  as  1899  William  T.  Stead, 
borrowing  a  title  previously  used  by  Vic- 
tor Hugo,  had  published  his  "  United 
States  of  Europe,"  embodying  the  views 
of  leading  statesmen  and  sovereigns  on 
the  subject  of  improved  international  or- 
ganization. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  had  likewise  sug- 
gested in  1910  that  the  Great  Powers 
should  form  a  League  of  Peace  "  not  only 
to  keep  the  peace  among  themselves  but 
to  prevent,  by  force,  if  necessary,  its  be- 
ing broken  by  others,"  and  to  that  end 


40          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

should  institute  an  international  police.7 
At  the  time  of  their  presentation  few 
men  believed  that  agitation  in  favour  of 
any  of  these  plans  would  lead  to  practi- 
cal results  in  our  day. 

But  immediately  after  the  beginning 
of  the  present  war  the  subject  was  again 
put  forward  by  Mr.  Holt  who  had  taken 
it  up  anew  in  association  with  the  direc- 
tors of  the  New  York  Peace  Society.8 
The  philosophy  of  this  new  plea  of  his 
was  that  "  Peace  follows  justice,  jus- 
tice follows  law,  and  law  follows  political 
organization."  This  time  the  sugges- 
tion, which  spoke  the  thoughts  of  many 
men  —  i.e.,  was  really  in  the  air  —  ex- 
cited a  great  deal  of  attention.  It  of- 
fered something  around  which  men  could 
centre  a  positive  effort.  Important  com- 
ment was  at  once  forthcoming.9  John 
Bassett  Moore  declared  the  principle  to 
be  sound.  While  pointing,  as  a  precau- 
tion against  over-confidence  in  the  unin- 
terrupted workings  of  such  a  plan,  to  the 


VEERING  OF  OPINION          41 

impatience  which  men  often  display  of 
legal  restraint  and  to  organized  revolt 
within  the  State  against  such  restraint, 
he  said :  "  No  doubt  one  of  the  best 
assurances  against  indulgence  of  this 
propensity  is  a  regulated  governmental 
control,  and  for  this  reason  I  applaud 
your  advocacy  of  a  practical  step  to- 
ward international  federation  for  attain- 
ment of  that  end,  without  intending,  how- 
ever, to  countenance  the  supposition  that 
we  may  slumber  upon  any  contrivance, 
parliamentary,  judicial  or  otherwise, 
municipal  or  international,  as  an  all- 
sufficient  safeguard  against  outbreaks  of 
violence." 

Richard  Olney  said:  "The  merit  of 
your  proposal  is  affirmed  by  the  expe- 
rience of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
under  their  national  Constitution  —  not 
as  being  a  certain  preventative  of  war 
but  as  clearly  tending  in  that  direction." 

Arthur  T.  Hadley :  "  I  am  consoling 
myself  for  the  evils  of  the  present  war 


42  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

by  the  thought  that  at  the  end  of  it  we 
may  see  something  of  the  kind  put  into 
effect." 

The  present  writer  ventured  the  state- 
ment that  we  were  at  a  turning  point 
in  history,  that  the  war  would  re- 
sult in  good  or  in  accentuated  evil,  oc- 
cordingly  as  the  right-minded  nations 
saw  their  duty,  and  that  if  we  could  se- 
cure a  promise  from  the  Entente  to  join 
such  a  league  "  as  a  condition  precedent 
to  our  doing  what  we  ought  to  do  any- 
way, namely,  vent  our  righteous  indig- 
nation at  the  way  in  which  Germany  has 
outraged  Belgium  and  has  trampled  un- 
der foot  the  law  of  nations  and  the  moral 
law  alike,  we  should  be  accomplishing 
the  double  object  of  helping  to  crush 
militarism  and  of  setting  up  an  institu- 
tion which  might  bring  about  a  marked 
decline  of  war." 


EXAMINING  THE  PROBLEM       43 


EXAMINING  THE  PROBLEM 

Instead  of  launching  the  project  at  a 
public  meeting,  as  was  first  suggested, 
the  conclusion  was  reached  that  better 
results  would  follow  if  there  should  be  a 
careful  study  of  the  subject  beforehand, 
first  by  a  group  of  purely  scientific  men 
and  later  on  by  men  of  larger  practical 
experience.  That  plan  was  carried  out. 

At  the  invitation  of  four  individuals,  a 
group  of  about  twenty  scientific  men  met 
at  dinner  at  the  Century  Club  in  New 
York  on  three  separate  occasions.10 
The  group  embraced  professors  of  politi- 
cal science,  of  international  law,  of  his- 
tory, and  of  economics.  The  subject 
was  thrown  into  the  arena  and  torn  to 
pieces  at  meetings  lasting  well  into  the 
night.  In  this  way  was  worked  out  what 
was  regarded  as  a  "  desirable  "  plan. 

The  discussions  arc  reflected  in  a 
paper,  "  World  Court  and  League  of 


44           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

Peace,"  published  by  the  Judicial  Set- 
tlement Society  in  February,  1915. n 
The  difficulties  to  be  overcome  in  order 
to  secure  such  a  League,  its  advantages 
and  dangers,  the  forces  which  would  tend 
to  hold  it  together  and  those  which  would 
incline  to  disrupt  it,  are  there  considered. 

Only  nations  whose  aim  is  justice  and 
whose  practices  make  for  justice  should 
be  admitted  to  the  League.  Backward 
countries  should  not  be  included  for  the 
reason  that  a  nation  which  cannot  main- 
tain law  and  order  within  its  own  bor- 
ders and  is  either  unable  or  unwilling  to 
carry  out  its  international  obligations 
cannot  lend  strength  to  a  League.  It 
would  actually  be  a  source  of  weakness 
to  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  League 
should  if  possible  embrace  all  the  pro- 
gressive Powers,  namely,  the  eight  Great 
Powers,  the  Secondary  Powers  of  Eu- 
rope (except  the  Balkan  States  and 
Turkey),  and  the  "ABC"  countries  of 
South  America. 

In   several   of   the    countries    in    this 


EXAMINING  THE  PROBLEM       45 

group  democracy  is  no  longer  regarded 
as  a  passing  phase  of  political  develop- 
ment but  as  a  permanent  fact  in  politics. 
These  common  ideals  would  tend  to  hold 
that  group  together.  Two  of  the  pro- 
posed members,  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  may  be  said  to  be  satis- 
fied territorially.  While  the  smaller 
progressive  countries  in  the  group,  such 
as  Switzerland,  Denmark,  Norway,  and 
Sweden,  have  no  disturbing  ambitions. 

The  play  of  interests  in  such  a  large 
group  would  make  for  justice.  The 
League  would  not  be  instituted  unless  it 
embraced  an  overwhelming  preponder- 
ance of  military  power,  and,  if  it  was 
both  strong  and  just,  its  potential 
strength  need  seldom  translate  itself 
into  war.  Such  a  comprehensive  circle 
of  Powers  is  all  the  more  necessary 
when  it  is  proposed,  as  in  this  original 
plan,  to  enforce  the  judgment  of  the 
Court  or  award  of  the  arbitral  tribunal, 
because  of  the  danger  of  oppression  con- 
nected with  such  purpose. 


46          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

To  prevent  all  appearance  of  aggres- 
sion, the  League  was  intended  to  operate 
only  on  its  own  members.  That  of 
course  left  them  open  to  attack  from 
outside  and  precluded  any  demand  for 
a  reduction  of  armaments.  But  the  lat- 
ter problem  is  hedged  about  with  so 
many  difficulties  anyway  that  the  bal- 
ance of  gain  is  in  favour  of  this  position. 
No  headway  can  be  made  against  the  ar- 
mament evil  until  time  demonstrates  the 
fact  that  the  League  is  able  not  only  to 
defend  its  members  in  emergencies  but  is 
itself  able  to  hold  together  in  stress  and 
storm.  Until  such  time,  for  example, 
Great  Britain  could  not  well  be  asked  to 
impair  the  strength  of  her  great  fleet. 
The  Great  War  and  its  accompaniments 
have  resulted  in  a  shock  to  confidence  — 
confidence  in  the  binding  force  of  treaty 
obligations,  confidence  in  international 
law,  and  confidence  in  the  upright  inten- 
tions of  the  neighbour.  No  matter  what 
the  issue  of  the  war,  we  are  therefore  apt, 
for  a  time,  to  witness  armaments  g^ing 


EXAMINING  THE  PROBLEM       47 

on  at  an  accelerated  pace.  But  once  the 
German  menace  is  definitely  removed  by 
a  change  of  spirit  on  the  part  of  the 
German  people,  the  world  may  not  only 
work  back  to  its  normal  condition,  but 
the  existence  of  a  league  of  nations  — 
after  it  shall  have  established  general 
confidence  in  its  ability  to  do  what  it  is 
designed  to  do  —  must  eventually  bring 
about  an  actual  amelioration  of  the  con- 
dition of  armed  peace  existing  before  the 
war.  It  is  believed  that,  under  the 
League,  abatement  of  armaments  will 
come  about  naturally  through  disuse 
just  as,  in  frontier  communities,  when 
men  find  that  the  law  and  the  Courts  are 
able  to  protect  them,  they  lay  aside  the 
practice  of  going  about  armed. 

The  adoption  of  something  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  Bill  of  Rights  by  the  League 
was  considered  desirable.  It  would  set 
forth  great  areas  of  principle,  if  we  may 
use  this  term,  respect  for  life  and  prop- 
erty, rights  and  duties  in  times  of  peace, 
and  respect  for  new  and  higher  rules  set 


48  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

up  to  govern  the  acts  of  nations  in  time 
of  war. 

VI 

RACE  AND  ALIEN  GOVERNMENT 

Among  interests  to  be  so  safeguarded 
in  a  Bill  of  Rights  would  be  the  question 
of  equality  before  the  law  and  political 
rights.  The  puzzling  question  of  alien 
government  would  then  be  simplified  be- 
cause oppression  due  to  difference  of  na- 
tionality would  cease.  In  this  connec- 
tion it  is  important  to  examine  a  pro- 
posal put  forward  prominently  by  the 
Netherlands  Anti-Oorlog  Raad  and  by 
other  groups.  It  is  the  demand  for  a 
plebiscite  of  the  inhabitants  before  a 
transfer  of  territory  is  permitted.  The- 
oretically this  would  seem  to  fit  in  with 
the  demands  of  justice.  Practically,  se- 
rious difficulties  present  themselves  in 
connection  with  the  proposal. 

In  the  first  place,  to  admit  this  right 
of  approval  by  the  population  of  the  ter- 
ritory about  to  be  transferred  involves 


RACE  AND  GOVERNMENT       49 

logically  the  right  of  secession.  Sup- 
pose, for  example,  that  at  the  end  of  this 
war  the  people  of  Alsace  are  consulted 
about  restitution  of  the  province  to 
France,  that  they  should  approve  of  it 
and  that  the  transfer  is  thereupon  made. 
If,  then,  at  a  future  time,  these  same  peo- 
ple of  Alsace  should  reach  the  conclusion 
that  they  had  made  a  mistake  and  should 
demand  release  from  their  allegiance  to 
France,  could  this  demand  logically  be 
denied?  And  are  we  prepared  to  admit 
the  right  of  secession  whenever  a  local 
community  exhibits  discontent  under  a 
government?  To  have  set  up  such  a 
principle  would  have  conceded  the  right 
of  the  New  England  States  to  secede 
from  the  American  Union  when  the  sev- 
eral waves  of  discontent  swept  over  them 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  It  would  have  admitted  the 
right  of  the  Southern  States  to  secede 
when  the  slavery  issue  became  acute.  It 
would  admit  the  right  of  Ireland  today 


50           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

to  secede  from  Great  Britain  and  to  es- 
tablish, close  to  the  border  of  the  home 
country,  a  separate  sovereignty  which 
might  afford  a  foothold  for  an  enemy  at- 
tack. 

Peace  is  secured  by  union,  not  by  dis- 
ruption. For  generations  the  border  of 
England  and  Scotland  was  the  scene  of 
bloody  strife,  all  stilled  by  the  union  of 
these  two  countries  in  1707.  For  four- 
teen hundred  years  after  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  of  the  West,  Italy  was 
torn  by  ceaseless  wars  between  her  city- 
states  and  between  her  principalities, 
leaving  her  an  easy  prey  to  the  invader 
—  all  stilled  by  union.  The  mind  of 
Cavour  grasped  this  truth  firmly  and  laid 
broad  the  foundations  for  a  single  Italian 
State  which  has  spelled  rebirth,  security 
and  progress. 

For  centuries  men  witnessed  similar 
wars  between  the  principalities  and  petty 
kingdoms  of  France.  It  was  the  very 
establishment  of  strong  central  govern- 
ment in  France  at  an  early  day  which 


RACE  AND  GOVERNMENT       51 

enabled  her  to  shine  as  a  leader  in 
Europe  in  all  the  walks  of  civilization. 

In  Germany  for  long  years  the  hand  of 
every  baron  and  petty  noble  was  turned 
against  his  neighbour.  There  too  it  was 
consolidation  which  brought  law  and  or- 
dered progress. 

In  the  second  place  the  plebiscite  is 
often  a  meaningless  form.  Certainly  it 
has  been  such  in  France,  where  it  has  been 
used  to  confirm  a  fait  accompli.  For  the 
people  to  endeavour  to  undo  the  thing 
already  done  would  have  meant  anarchy. 
Therefore  the  result  has  usually  been  mil- 
lions of  affirmative  votes  against  a  few 
thousand  negative  votes.  Napoleon  Bo- 
naparte made  himself  first  Consul  in 
December,  1799,  organized  his  govern- 
ment and  six  weeks  thereafter  instituted 
a  plebiscite  to  confirm  his  act.  Is  there 
any  need  to  say  what  the  result  of  that 
plebiscite  was?  When  in  May,  1804,  he 
had  gotten  the  title  of  Emperor  con- 
ferred on  him  by  the  Senate  he  again  in- 
vited a  plebiscite  with  like  result.  Louis 


52  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

Napoleon  was  not  slow  to  see  the  advan- 
tages of  this  method.  A  plebiscite,  De- 
cember 20,  1851,  endorsed  his  high- 
handed methods  of  dealing  with  the 
National  Assembly  and  of  perpetuating 
himself  as  President  of  the  Republic  in 
violation  of  the  provisions  of  the  Con- 
stitution. Next,  having  gathered  into 
his  hands  all  executive  power  with  the 
right  to  nominate  the  members  of  the 
Senate  and  of  the  Council  of  State, 
through  which  alone  legislation  could  be 
initiated,  he  proceeded  once  more  to  in- 
stitute a  plebiscite  which  conferred  on 
him  the  title  of  Emperor. 

Now,  is  not  the  question  of  a  transfer 
of  territory  in  much  the  same  category? 
Such  transfer  at  the  end  of  a  war  has  to 
be  agreed  upon  in  framing  the  treaty  of 
peace.  For  the  people  of  the  territory 
in  question  to  negative  the  decision  of 
the  Congress  might  mean  reopening  the 
vital  issues  of  the  war  and  so  renewing 
the  war.  Under  such  circumstances,  is 
there  any  doubt  that  the  votes  of  the  in- 


RACE  AND  GOVERNMENT       53 

habitants  will  simply  register  what  the 
Congress  has  decreed?  At  such  times, 
too,  the  men  "  in  possession  "  generally 
get  their  will  done.  Dicey  refers  to  the 
way  in  which,  during  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, "  the  Terrorist  faction,  when  all 
but  crushed  by  general  odium,  extorted 
from  the  country  by  means  of  a  plebiscite 
a  sham  assent  to  the  prolongation  of 
revolutionary  despotism." 

The  real  solution  of  the  problem  of 
race  conflict  lies  in  equal  political  rights. 

Why  are  the  American  emigrant  to 
Canada  and  the  Canadian  emigrant  to 
the  United  States  so  content?  Mani- 
festly because  they  find  in  the  new  home 
justice  and  order,  security  and  freedom. 
On  the  other  hand,  why  do  men  of  pro- 
gressive races  who  settle  in  backward 
countries  agitate  for  the  annexation  of 
such  countries  to  their  own  and  so  bring 
on  extension  of  empire?  Is  it  not  princi- 
pally in  order  to  secure  the  freedom  and 
justice  to  which  they  have  been  accus- 
tomed at  home? 


54          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

Would  the  South  African  War  have 
occurred  if  the  Johannesburger  had  en- 
joyed full  political  rights  under  the  Boer 
government?  When  men  everywhere 
come  to  enjoy  equal  political  rights  — 
enabling  them  to  help  themselves  to  full 
civil  rights  and  religious  liberty  —  they 
will  in  course  of  time  cease  to  care 
whether  they  live  under  this  or  that  gov- 
ernment. 

Discontent  will  further  tend  to  disap- 
pear if  we  add  to  this  the  system  of  local 
self-government  such  as  obtains  in  the 
United  States,  where  the  people  of  the 
separate  States  govern  themselves  in  re- 
spect of  the  majority  of  matters  that 
touch  their  interests. 


VII 

OTHER  NEEDS 

The  abandonment  of  exclusive  rights 
of  exploitation  and  the  suppression  of 
discrimination  in  the  treatment  of  for- 
eign nations  seeking  to  trade  with  a 


OTHER  NEEDS  55 

given  State  would  likewise  be  helpful. 
This  latter  does  not  imply  abolition  of 
protective  tariffs  but  simply  the  equal 
treatment  of  all  comers,  the  "  favoured 
nation  "  clause  made  universal. 

It  is  important  likewise  to  recognize 
the  right  on  the  part  of  a  State  to  de- 
mand neutralization  of  its  territory. 
We  may  expect  this  valuable  means  of 
extending  the  geographical  area  of 
peace  to  be  revived  despite  the  blow  it 
has  received  in  the  present  war,  and  to  be 
extended  to  wider  and  wider  areas  under 
stronger  guarantees  than  heretofore.12 

It  might  be  possible,  too,  to  lay  down 
the  principle  for  which  the  United 
States  has  long  contended,  the  exemp- 
tion from  seizure  of  private  property  at 
sea,  the  experiences  of  the  present  war 
causing  all  nations  to  see  the  advan- 
tages of  it. 

The  inclusion  of  principles  such  as 
these  in  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
League  would  act  as  a  loadstone  to  draw 
the  liberal  minded  everywhere  to  the 


56  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

League  and  so  induce  governments  to 
adhere  to  it. 

It  would  probably  be  necessary  to  ac- 
cept the  status  quo  geographical  be- 
cause of  the  difficulty  of  setting  a  limit 
to  any  attempt  to  correct  historic  in- 
justices. It  was,  however,  supposed 
that  certain  burning  questions  of  this 
nature  would  be  disposed  of  at  the  end 
of  the  present  war  and  would  therefore 
not  be  left  to  trouble  the  League. 

Furthermore,  institutions  in  the  na- 
ture of  preventive  justice,  previously  re- 
ferred to,  should  be  set  up  —  purely  fac- 
ultative institutions  with  no  element  of 
obligation  appertaining.  Peoples  might 
voluntarily  use  these  in  the  endeavour  to 
correct  local  conditions  calculated  to 
ripen  into  real  international  conflicts. 
"  The  suggestion  rests  on  the  idea  that 
publicity  alone  tends  to  correct  abuses." 

For  the  reason  that  the  plan  contem- 
plated enforcing  the  judgment  of  the 
Court,  etc.,  and  that  when  the  Court  had 
won  the  confidence  of  men  a  larger  and 


OTHER  NEEDS  57 

larger  number  of  cases  would  be  brought 
before  it,  it  was  deemed  advisable  that 
the  "  sheriff  "  —  the  police  force  — 
should  be  internationally  organized:  a 
federal  force,  controlled  and  supported 
by  the  League  and  always  ready. 

We  shall  see  how  this  and  other  fea- 
tures of  the  program  were  modified 
later  on. 

As  conflicts  of  political  policy  could 
not  be  dealt  with  by  a  Court  some  other 
body  was  needed  to  entertain  them,  and 
a  name  for  this  was  supplied  —  Council 
of  Conciliation  —  by  the  printed  mem- 
orandum embodying  the  conclusions 
reached  by  the  English  group,  headed 
by  Lord  Bryce,  which  was  read  and  con- 
sidered at  our  third  meeting. 

The  studies  of  the  Bryce  group  were 
helpful  to  us  in  other  ways,  serving  not 
only  to  clarify  our  ideas  but  above  all 
to  encourage  us  to  proceed  with  a  plan 
which  had  so  many  points  of  resemblance 
to  the  plan  of  our  kinsmen  over  the  seas. 

An  Executive  Council  and  Deliberat- 


58  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ive  Assembly  —  the  latter  already  found 
in  embryo  in  the  Hague  Conference  and 
Interparliamentary  Union  —  would  be 
necessary. 

VIII 

SOVEREIGNTY 

As  true  liberty  in  the  society  of  na- 
tions, like  true  liberty  within  the  State, 
can  be  secured  only  by  a  surrender  of 
license,  we  did  not  hesitate  to  recommend 
a  plan  involving  a  modification  of  sover- 
eignty. 

Just  as  the  old  idea  of  natural  rights 
has  given  way  to  the  conception  that 
the  State  has  a  right  to  do  whatever  it  is 
in  the  interest  of  society  in  the  long  re- 
sult that  it  should  do,  so  it  is  becoming 
plain  that  the  doctrine  of  absolute  sov- 
ereignty set  up  to  guard  the  State  itself 
against  interference  by  other  States 
must  ultimately  give  way  before  the  con- 
ception of  a  society  of  nations.  As  is 
well  known,  the  theory  of  natural  rights, 


SOVEREIGNTY  59 

which  set  boundaries  to  the  activities  of 
the  State  operating  on  its  own  people, 
was  designed  to  protect  men  against  the 
power  of  the  autocrat.  When  govern- 
ments came  to  reflect  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple the  need  for  this  device  disappeared. 
The  doctrine  of  absolute  sovereignty  had 
its  origin  in  a  similar  motive.  The 
theory  was  designed  to  safeguard  the 
right  of  the  individual  State  in  a  world 
where  the  powerful  State  was  governed 
by  few  rules  or  precepts  and  was  moved 
principally  by  the  desire  for  aggrandize- 
ment. As  democracy  spreads,  the  domi- 
nating motive  of  aggrandizement  is  di- 
minished and  the  desire  to  do  justice  to 
the  sister  State  begins  to  emerge. 
When  this  happens  the  same  ultimate 
test  may  be  applied  to  the  doctrine  of 
sovereignty  as  was  applied  to  the  doc- 
trine of  natural  rights. 

If  it  is  in  the  interests  of  men  that  na- 
tions should  enjoy  sovereignty  full  and 
unimpaired,  well  and  good.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  sovereignty  unimpaired  leads 


60           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

to  disaster  —  in  the  shape,  for  example, 
of  unjust  and  destructive  wars  —  it 
should  not  be  suffered  to  continue.  The 
State  should  retain  only  so  much  sov- 
ereignty as  makes  for  the  welfare  of  men 
organized  in  States. 

The  experience  of  the  forty-eight 
States  now  comprising  the  United  States 
of  America  is  really  an  application  of 
this  conception.  The  Union  was  consti- 
tuted of  sovereign  and  independent 
States.  They  surrendered  sovereignty 
but  not  self-government.  The  separate 
States  of  the  Union  still  govern  them- 
selves with  respect  to  three  quarters  of 
the  things  that  touch  the  public  inter- 
est. Absolute  sovereignty  was  surren- 
dered by  them  in  the  common  interest. 

Now,  world  opinion  is  not  ripe  for  a 
union  of  nations  so  complete  as  the 
union  of  the  American  States  under  a 
federal  government.  But  even  a  rudi- 
mentary organization  must  be  based 
upon  this  same  conception,  namely,  the 
right  of  the  society  of  nations  to  demand 


SOVEREIGNTY  61 

of  the  individual  States  whatever  it  is  in 
the  interest  of  the  race  that  it  should 
demand. 

Within  the  State  the  individual  with- 
out wealth  or  influence  who,  in  former 
times,  was  preyed  upon  by  the  powerful, 
now  enjoys,  under  modern  institutions, 
the  same  rights  and  privileges  before  the 
law  as  the  wealthy  and  powerful.  Just 
so,  under  a  properly  organized  society  of 
nations,  the  small  State  will  come  to  en- 
joy security  equal  to  that  of  its  more 
powerful  neighbour,  a  security  far  more 
ample  than  any  doctrine  of  absolute  sov- 
ereignty can  give  it  under  present  condi- 
tions. 

Society  implies  restraint.  And  a  so- 
ciety of  nations  is  not  exempt  from  the 
rule.  The  one  license  which  it  has  be- 
come perfectly  clear  the  nations  must 
surrender  is  the  license  to  make  war  at 
will.  Begin  with  that  demand,  make  it 
difficult  for  nations  to  settle  disputes  by 
force,  and  they  will  seek  and  find  other 
ways  to  settle  them.  That  truth  is  at 


62          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

the  very  bottom  of  the  whole  movement 
for  world  organization.  If  we  take  our 
stand  upon  that  demand  the  machinery 
for  settling  disputes  will  come. 

IX 

ORIGINAL  PLAN 

In  the  desirable  project  planned  by 
the  original  group  we  find  four  pro- 
gressive stages: 

First  stage:  Institutions  such  as  we 
now  have,  supplemented  by  a  true  inter- 
national Court  of  Justice,  all  of  which 
institutions  are  purely  voluntary  or  fac- 
ultative. 

Second  stage:  The  element  of  obli- 
gation added  in  so  far  as  the  nations 
shall  bind  themselves  to  resort  to  these 
institutions. 

Third  stage:  The  further  addition 
of  an  agreement  to  have  the  League  act 
as  an  international  grand  jury  to  hale 
the  would-be  law-breaker  before  a 
commission  of  inquiry  and  to  use 


MODIFIED  PLAN  63 

force  to  bring  it  there  if  recalcitrant. 
Fourth  stage:     The  final  addition  of 
an  agreement  to  use  force,  if  need  be,  to 
execute  the  award  of  the  tribunal. 


X 

MODIFIED  PLAN 

Following  our  original  purpose,  the 
results  of  the  three  meetings  of  scientific 
men  embodied  in  the  desirable  plan 
were  now  laid  before  a  body  of  men  of 
wider  practical  experience,  the  date  of 
the  meeting  being  fixed  to  suit  the  con- 
venience of  William  Howard  Taft.13 
All  present  at  this  meeting  accepted 
without  demur  the  first  and  second  ele- 
ments of  the  plan  outlined  above.  Two 
men  withheld  their  support  of  the 
third  element  on  "  entangling  alliance  " 
grounds.  In  the  light  of  the  discussions 
had,  they  all  abstained  from  supporting 
the  fourth  element,  which  thereupon  dis- 
appeared from  the  program  of  the 
League.  It  must  be  remembered  that 


64           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

the  object  of  this  meeting  was  to  decide 
how  much  of  the  desirable  plan  previ- 
ously mapped  out  was  realizable  in  the 
present  stage  of  world  opinion. 

With  the  disappearance  of  the  provi- 
sion for  the  enforcement  of  the  judg- 
ment or  award  there  likewise  disappears 
the  need  of  a  central  military  force. 
And  for  this  reason:  the  only  demand 
which  the  League  will  now  attempt  to 
enforce  is  the  demand  for  an  inquiry  be- 
fore the  signatories  are  allowed  to  fight. 

The  value  of  inquiry  has  been  amply 
illustrated  in  municipal  affairs  in  con- 
nection with  labour  disputes.  The  oper- 
ations of  the  Hague  Tribunal  and  the 
Dogger  Bank  Affair,  brought  before  the 
International  Commission  of  Inquiry,  de- 
monstrate its  value  in  disputes  between 
nations.  It  has  been  found  in  progress- 
ive countries  like  the  United  States  that 
mere  inquiry  tends  to  correct  not  only 
illegal  practices  but  unjust  practices  as 
well,  often  rendering  unnecessary  a  re- 
sort to  a  court  of  justice  or  even  to  an 


MODIFIED  PLAN  65 

arbitration.  In  international  disputes 
the  facts  brought  out  by  an  inquiry, 
operating  not  only  on  the  opinion  of  the 
world  but  on  the  people  of  the  offending 
country,  would  often  serve  to  correct  the 
injustice  complained  of. 

What  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace 
proposes  is  to  take  the  present  Bryan 
Treaties  of  obligatory  inquiry,  made  in 
pairs,  and  make  them  common  to  all 
members  of  the  League.  It  proposes 
further  to  add  to  the  obligation  which 
alone  attaches  to  them  now  the  element 
of  compulsion  in  order  to  force  a  re- 
sort to  inquiry  before  a  nation  is  al- 
lowed to  precipitate  war.  It  is  on  the 
fairness  and  usefulness  of  this  principle 
that  the  League  program  is  mainly 
based. 

Having  conformed  to  this  demand  for 
an  inquiry  the  signatories  are  free  to  go 
to  war  as  under  present  conditions. 
No  nation,  however  powerful,  is  apt  to 
refuse  such  a  reasonable  demand  if  faced 
with  the  painful  alternative  of  having  to 


66          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

wage  war  practically  against  the  civil- 
ized world.  Nations  bent  on  aggression 
may  go  through  the  form  of  an  inquiry 
and  proceed  with  their  aggressive  plans 
later.  But  the  League  as  such  will 
probably  never  be  called  upon  to  make 
war.  Certainly  the  instances  in  which 
it  will  be  compelled  to  do  so  will  be  so 
rare  that  it  will  be  sufficient  to  call  on 
the  members  to  supply  their  proper 
quotas  to  an  international  military  force 
when  the  emergency  arises. 

The  League  would  not  try  to  change 
human  nature.  Altruism  is  a  factor  in 
its  operations,  but  the  plan  still  recog- 
nizes self-interest  as  the  governing  mo- 
tive of  States  as  of  individuals.  Only, 
under  the  League,  with  its  pains  and 
penalties,  the  self-interest  of  the  State 
would  now  be  unmistakably  in  the  direc- 
tion of  keeping  the  peace,  at  least  until 
an  inquiry  of  the  dispute  had  been  had. 

The  fact  that  some  of  the  Great  Pow- 
ers were  still  under  autocratic  govern- 
ment offered  certain  difficulties  to  the 


MODIFIED  PLAN  67 

successful  operation  of  the  League.  In 
Russia,  for  example,  the  Council  of  the 
Empire  carried  out  only  so  much  of  the 
Duma  program  as  it  saw  fit.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  Council  of  the  Empire  were 
the  personal  appointees  of  the  Czar  and 
the  Czar  was  reputed  to  be  the  individ- 
ual who,  in  the  last  resort,  decided  all 
important  questions  of  internal  and  ex- 
ternal policy.  However  good  his  inten- 
tions might  be,  it  was  realized  that  the 
Czar's  own  freedom  of  action  was  greatly 
curtailed  by  malign  influences  having 
their  seat  in  a  powerful  and  corrupt  bu- 
reaucracy. This  condition  has  now  hap- 
pily been  corrected  by  the  inauguration 
of  liberal  government  in  Russia. 

Turning  to  Germany,  the  dominant 
influence  of  its  ruler  was  felt  to  be  a 
menace  to  the  success  of  the  League 
should  that  country  become  a  member. 
But  out  of  this  war  may  come  great 
changes  in  Germany,  too.  If  not,  the 
spirit  of  aggression  on  the  part  of  its 
rulers  can  probably  be  kept  down  by  a 


68  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

league  so  powerful  that  Germany  will  not 
venture  to  oppose  its  will. 


XI 

CRITICS 

The  plan  to  use  the  combined  military 
power  of  the  League  to  compel  an  in- 
quiry estranged  several  eminent  Ameri- 
can publicists  who  adhered  to  their  old 
belief  that  public  opinion  would  in  time 
prove  all-sufficient  in  securing  justice 
among  the  nations  without  resort  to 
force.  They  pointed  to  the  fact  that  no 
law  is  effective  unless  it  has  public  opin- 
ion back  of  it,  neglecting  the  equally  im- 
portant fact  that  it  is  public  opinion 
plus  law  and  the  sheriff  which  keeps  the 
State  in  order. 

Prominent  among  these  was  James 
Brown  Scott,14  who  has  been  one  of  the 
most  devoted  and  effective  workers,  both 
at  the  Second  Hague  Conference  and 
since,  for  a  true  international  Court  of 
Justice. 


CRITICS  69 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  men  who 
claimed  that  our  program  did  not  go  far 
enough.  For  example,  the  refusal  on 
the  part  of  the  League  to  stand  for  en- 
forcing the  judgment  of  the  Court  cost 
us  the  co-operation  of  one  American 
whose  services  to  the  cause  of  interna- 
tional organization  must  yet  be  noticed. 
I  refer  to  Charles  W.  Eliot  who  enjoys 
great  authority  by  reason  of  exceptional 
soundness  of  judgment,  combined  with 
unusual  penetration  and  high  purpose. 

In  a  series  of  addresses  beginning  some 
ten  years  ago  Eliot  turned  his  attention 
to  the  question  of  how  to  advance  in- 
ternational good  will.  Pointing  to  the 
self-denying  ordinance  by  which  two 
countries  of  unequal  strength,  Canada 
and  the  United  States,  had  agreed  to 
maintain  equal  though  insignificant  na- 
val forces  on  the  Great  Lakes,  he  said: 
"  Now,  that  is  exactly  what  we  want  all 
over  the  world  —  a  self-denying  ordi- 
nance and  a  police  force  furnished  by 


70 


all  the  civilized  nations,  combined  to 
maintain  a  common  force."  He  coupled 
with  this  observation  the  remark  that  in 
"  publicity  lies  the  great  hope  of  the 
world.  ...  It  is  the  way  we  are  to  find 
not  only  industrial  peace,  but  peace  be- 
tween the  civilized  nations  of  the  world." 

Motives  of  aggression  aside,  the  in- 
centives to  armament  are  fear  of  actual 
invasion  and  fear  lest  food  supplies  be 
cut  off.  Only  international  guarantees 
can  allay  these  fears. 

Eliot's  motto  is :  "  Peace  on  earth  to 
men  of  good  will."  Force  is  to  be  ap- 
plied only  to  "  men  who  lack  good  will." 
Free  governments  tend  to  develop  this 
good  will. 

He  regards  it  as  absolutely  necessary 
to  invent  and  apply  "  a  sanction  for  in- 
ternational law,  if  Europe  is  to  have 
international  peace  and  any  national 
liberty."  The  only  way  for  the  nations 
of  Europe  to  obtain  security  is  "  by  the 
creation  of  an  international  legislative 
and  executive  council,  or  other  political 


CRITICS  71 

body,  backed  by  an  international  police 
force." 

A  firm  supporter  of  the  proposed 
Court  of  Arbitral  Justice,  he  co-operated 
actively  with  the  Judicial  Settlement  So- 
ciety, serving  for  a  time  as  its  president. 
But  unlike  the  other  leading  advocates  of 
the  Court  project,  he  believes  that  the  in- 
terests of  durable  peace  require  the  main- 
tenance of  an  international  force  to  ex- 
ecute the  orders  of  the  Court.  It  was 
because  the  program  of  the  League  to 
Enforce  Peace  omitted  this  feature  that 
he  declined  to  associate  himself  actively 
with  the  League  when  invited  to  do  so. 
But  Eliot  accepts  wholly  the  conception 
of  "  a  strong  union  of  nations  leagued 
together  to  maintain  peace." 

It  will  be  seen  that  what  he  believes 
in  the  organizers  of  the  League  to  En- 
force Peace  also  believe  in  and  look  for- 
ward to.  They  differ  simply  in  their 
respective  estimates  of  the  "  realizable  " 
in  the  present  state  of  world  opinion. 


72           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 


XII 

LAUNCHING  THE  PROJECT 

But  to  return  to  our  narrative.  It 
was  Mr.  Taft  who  took  the  agreement 
reached  by  the  meeting,  and  himself 
drafted  the  four  articles  constituting 
the  platform  of  the  League.  The  pro- 
gram was  limited  to  these  few  simple  de- 
mands in  the  belief  that  they  constituted 
the  essential  elements  of  a  rudimentary 
world  organization  to  discourage  war, 
that  it  would  be  much  easier  to  get  na- 
tions to  adhere  to  such  a  program  than 
to  a  larger  or  more  detailed  one ;  and 
that,  having  once  committed  themselves 
to  it,  all  further  problems  of  organiza- 
tion or  of  scope  could  be  worked  out 
successfully  by  the  envoys  charged  with 
the  duty  of  framing  the  actual  conven- 
tion. 

We  were  now  ready  to  launch  the  pro- 
ject at  a  public  meeting.  Independence 
Hall  at  Philadelphia  was  chosen  as  the 


LAUNCHING  THE  PROJECT      73 

place  of  the  meeting.  It  was  at  this  his- 
toric hall  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was  signed  and  that  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  was 
drafted.  Therefore  to  hold  the  meeting 
there  —  a  meeting  called  to  frame  a 
Declaration  of  /«  ^dependence  of  the 
Nations  —  was  calculated  to  appeal  to 
the  imagination  of  the  country.  And  it 
had  that  effect.  It  was  there  that  the 
name  of  the  association  was  changed 
from  that  of  League  of  Peace  to 
League  to  Enforce  Peace.  The  League 
planned  was  fundamentally  a  league  to 
compel  inquiry  before  nations  are  al- 
lowed to  fight.  Any  such  title,  however, 
would  have  been  too  long  and  as  the  tem- 
per of  the  times  called  for  the  use  of 
force  to  prevent  a  nation  from  wantonly 
precipitating  war  as  the  present  war  had 
been  precipitated,  it  was  decided  to  em- 
phasize this  idea  in  the  title  of  the 
League.  There  were  one  or  two  minor 
changes  in  the  program,  but  on  the  whole 
it  stands  as  Mr.  Taft  originally  drafted 


74          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

it.15  Mr.  Taft  generously  accepted  the 
presidency  of  the  association  and  has 
been  untiring  in  his  analysis  and  exposi- 
tion of  its  aims  and  possible  workings. 

Following  the  Philadelphia  meeting, 
the  attention  of  the  League  was  turned 
to  the  side  of  propaganda.  State 
branches  were  formed  and  even  minor 
groups  until  the  work  was  organized 
over  the  greater  part  of  the  United 
States  much  in  the  manner  of  a  political 
campaign.  The  object  of  this  move- 
ment was  to  cultivate  opinion  which 
would  make  itself  felt  in  the  United 
States  Senate.  We  realized  that  the 
danger  to  the  success  of  the  project  lay 
there.  It  thus  became  a  duty  to  develop 
in  the  country  not  merely  passive  opinion 
favourable  to  the  League  but  opinion  so 
positive  as  to  impress  itself  on  the  Sen- 
ate. 

Like  measures  have  a  way  in  this  world 
of  not  bringing  like  results  when  they 
act  on  that  complex  creature,  the  human 
being,  instead  of  on  things.  Although 


PUBLIC  DISCUSSION  75 

the  popular  campaign  to  support  the 
Taft  treaties  failed,  it  does  not  follow 
that  a  similar  campaign  to  have  the  Sen- 
ate see  the  light  in  respect  of  the  League 
of  Nations  project  will  be  equally  void 
of  result.  We  have  hope.16 

XIII 

PUBLIC  DISCUSSION 

It  is  impossible  here  to  go  fully  into 
the  discussion  revolving  around  the 
League's  program  in  America.  But  a 
brief  reference  to  it  may  serve  to  bring 
out  the  possible  workings  of  the  project. 

The  two  main  lines  of  attack  were  on 
the  ground  that  membership  in  the 
League  would  weaken  the  United  States 
in  respect  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and 
would  bring  about  an  entangling  alliance. 

Under  the  former  head  the  critics  ad- 
vanced a  hypothetical  case  involving  a 
dispute  between  the  United  States  and 
Mexico  over  the  lease  of  Magdalena  Bay 
by  the  latter  to  Japan 17  —  all  sup- 


76  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

posedly  members  of  the  League,  and 
asked:  "Would  the  United  States  sub- 
mit that  question  to  a  tribunal  where  it 
has  but  one  vote  or  one  voice,  and  permit 
its  entire  future  to  be  disposed  of  by  a 
Court  where  it  has  but  a  single  repre- 
sentative? " 

The  manifest  answer  was  that  in  this 
case  the  United  States  would  run  no  risk 
whatever  of  having  its  entire  future 
"  disposed  of  by  a  Court  "  for  the  sim- 
ple reason  that,  under  the  League  agree- 
ment, neither  the  judgment  of  a  Court 
nor  award  of  the  Council  of  Concilia- 
tion is  binding.  True,  in  numerous  in- 
stances nations  would  previously  enter, 
voluntarily,  into  a  preliminary  agree- 
ment to  respect  the  decision  of  the  inter- 
national tribunal,  but  in  the  absence  of 
such  special  agreement  they  are  not 
bound  by  it. 

With  Japan  and  the  United  States 
both  members  of  the  League,  the  case 
supposed,  being  a  conflict  of  political 
policies,  would  go  to  the  Council  of  Con- 


PUBLIC  DISCUSSION  77 

ciliation.  Naturally  the  United  States 
would  abstain  from  any  preliminary 
agreement  to  respect  the  decision  in  so 
vital  a  matter.  The  chances  are  that 
the  tribunal  would  not  even  proceed  to  a 
finding,  but  would  content  itself  with 
bringing  out  the  facts  —  permitting  the 
United  States  to  show  that  the  acquisi- 
tion by  Japan  of  Magdalena  Bay  would 
be  a  menace  to  its  own  safety  and  in  vio- 
lation of  a  policy  which,  although  not  a 
part  of  international  law,  was  yet  a 
cherished  ideal  of  the  United  States  of 
long  standing. 

Pending  the  inquiry  Japan  would  be 
estopped  by  injunction  from  proceeding 
with  the  objectionable  act  of  taking  pos- 
session of,  and  possibly  fortifying,  Mag- 
dalena Bay.  This  injunction  would  be 
supported  by  the  full  power  of  the 
League  and  during  the  period  of  the 
inquiry  the  Monroe  Doctrine  would  be 
safer  than  under  present  conditions. 
If,  when  the  inquiry  was  at  an  end,  both 
Mexico  and  Japan  persisted  in  their  ob- 


78           LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

j actionable  course,  the  United  States 
would  then  be  free  to  go  to  war  without 
violating  its  agreement  with  the  League. 

Moreover,  the  obligation  to  resort  to 
inquiry  before  fighting,  which  would  rest 
on  the  United  States  under  the  League, 
already  rests  on  it  under  the  Bryan 
Treaties  of  obligatory  inquiry.  It 
would  not  be  estopped,  under  the  League 
agreement,  from  doing  anything  what- 
ever which  it  is  not  already  estopped 
from  doing  by  its  plighted  word  given  in 
the  Bryan  Treaties. 

In  respect  of  entangling  alliances  the 
case  was  imagined  of  the  United  States, 
under  the  proposed  League,  being  com- 
pelled to  join  in  an  attack  on  Argentina 
because  the  latter  had  refused  to  submit 
a  dispute  with  a  European  Power  to 
"  an  international  tribunal  or  to  a  coun- 
cil of  conciliation."  The  answer  here 
was  that  no  such  obligation  would  rest  on 
the  United  States  in  the  premises. 
There  is  only  one  act  which  calls  for  the 
use  of  force  by  the  League,  namely,  mak-t 


PUBLIC  DISCUSSION  79 

ing  war  upon  a  fellow  signatory  without 
previous  resort  to  inquiry  or  honest  ef- 
fort to  secure  such.  To  compel  the 
United  States  to  move  against  Argen- 
tina, the  latter  must  be  the  aggressor, 
must  begin  the  fighting,  without  having 
previously  conformed  to  the  requirement 
regarding  an  inquiry,  the  two-fold  object 
of  which  is  to  bring  out  the  facts  so  that 
the  world  and  the  people  of  the  contend- 
ing countries  may  know  what  the  quar- 
rel is  about,  and  to  afford  time  for  sober 
second  thought.  It  must  indeed  be  a 
poor  case  which  a  country  cannot  af- 
ford to  submit  to  mere  inquiry.  And  if 
any  country,  our  own  included,  persists 
in  precipitating  war  without  having  con- 
formed to  so  reasonable  a  demand  —  be- 
ing free  to  go  to  war  afterwards  —  it 
deserves  to  be  disciplined. 

The  answer  to  the  group  who  think  a 
World  Court  all-sufficient  was  that  men 
who  see  the  question  whole  realize  that, 
as  a  deterrent  of  war,  the  Court  will  have 
very  little  immediate  effect.18  When, 


80          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

through  its  decisions,  it  shall  have  helped 
build  up  international  law,  and  when, 
through  its  very  existence,  the  codifica- 
tion of  certain  spheres  of  international 
law  shall  have  been  invited,  it  will  make 
for  peace.  But  that  is  a  slow  process, 
and  even  then  the  number  of  wars  which 
it  is  likely  to  prevent  will  be  small,  be- 
cause wars  arise  not  out  of  justifiable 
disputes,  but  out  of  conflicts  of  political 
policy  which  the  Court  is  not  constituted 
to  entertain. 

Moreover,  the  proposed  Court,  like  all 
existing  institutions  at  The  Hague,  will 
be  a  voluntary  institution.  Men  who, 
previously  to  this  war,  held  the  view 
that  public  opinion,  so  highly  commended 
by  this  group,  might  in  the  end  be  ef- 
fective in  compelling  resort  to  interna- 
tional tribunals,  have  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  the  world  cannot  wait  for 
that  ideal  state  of  mind  to  come,  that 
such  a  thing  as  the  present  war  is  intol- 
erable to  civilized  men,  and  that  the  ele- 
ment of  force  must  be  added  in  order  to 


PUBLIC  DISCUSSION  81 

discourage  men  from  attempting  it 
again.  This  is  what  the  League  to  En- 
force Peace  plans  to  do  by  its  demand 
for  an  inquiry  before  nations  are  allowed 
to  fight.  That  is  a  reasonable  demand 
—  the  demand  for  an  inquiry.  It  does 
not  mean  that  nations  will  be  prevented 
from  going  to  war  for  a  righteous  cause 
or  even  an  unrighteous  cause.  It  means 
only  that  they  must  give  us  a  chance  to 
make  up  our  minds  beforehand  whether 
or  not  it  is  a  righteous  cause. 

Trouble  for  the  League  was  foreseen 
in  determining  who  begins  a  war ;  the 
danger  of  interpreting,  as  the  critics  put 
it,  as  an  act  of  aggression  that  which  a 
nation  may  itself  consider  an  act  of 
self-defence. 

That  problem,  it  was  pointed  out,  is 
not  so  difficult  of  solution.  It  will  be 
remembered  that,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  war,  France  retired  her  forces  a 
certain  number  of  kilometres  within  her 
own  borders.  If  some  such  practice  as 
this  were  set  up,  there  would  be  a  simple 


82          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

geographical  fact  to  determine,  namely, 
the  locus  of  the  first  battle.  This  would 
determine  the  action  of  the  League,  be- 
cause the  program  of  the  League  at  pres- 
ent does  not  extend  to  an  attempt  to  in- 
sure justice,  though  it  will  make  for  jus- 
tice. All  it  does  is  to  compel  inquiry  be- 
fore fighting.  And  it  proposes  to  penal- 
ize the  signatory  which  makes  war  upon  a 
fellow-signatory  without  going  through 
the  form  of  such  inquiry.  It  is  the  act 
of  making  war,  and  no  other,  which  will 
call  for  war  by  the  League.  True,  the 
beginning  of  hostilities  at  sea  would  be 
more  difficult  of  determination ;  but  in 
times  of  tension  it  would  clearly  be  the 
duty  of  the  fleets  to  keep  out  of  the  op- 
ponent's waters.  There  could  be  no 
great  naval  battle  unless  there  was  an 
actual  entry  into  the  waters  of  one 
Power  by  another,  or  unless  the  fleets 
came  out  into  the  open  sea  purposely  to 
meet  each  other.  Any  minor  incidents 
could  be  composed  by  inquiry  and  indem- 
nity, and  need  not  necessvr'dy  1-ead  to 


PUBLIC  DISCUSSION  83 

war.     That  difficulty  is,   therefore,  not 
insurmountable. 

Again  it  was  asked  whether,  had  the 
League  agreement  been  in  operation 
during  the  Vera  Cruz  affair  of  Apr.  12, 
1914,  the  world's  interest  would  have 
been  served  by  the  military  forces  of 
the  Great  Powers  moving  against  the 
United  States  on  account  of  this  inci- 
dent. The  answer  to  this  question  was 
twofold : 

(a)  The   obligations   of   the  League 
will  extend  only  to  its  signatories  and  it 
is    not    proposed    that    backward    coun- 
tries like  Mexico  shall  be  admitted  to  it.19 

(b)  If  the  dispute  had  been  with  a 
progressive  Power,  instead  of  with  Mex- 
ico, the  United  States  would  have  gone 
through   the   form   of  an  inquiry,  being 
protected  against  repetitions  of  the  in- 
jury during  the  inquiry,  as  already  sug- 
gested,   by     the    power    of    injunction 
lodged   in    the  League.     If   the  inquiry 
failed   to  serve  its   purpose,  that  is   to 
say,  if  after  the  inquiry  the  offending 


84  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

country  should  again  commit  the  acts 
objected  to,  the  United  States  would  be 
free  to  make  war  on  it  without  being 
visited  with  any  penalties  at  the  hands 
of  the  League. 

Under  either  of  these  alternatives,  it 
will  be  seen,  the  situation  pictured,  call- 
ing for  the  employment  of  the  armies 
and  navies  of  the  Great  Powers  against 
the  United  States,  would  not  arise  under 
the  League.20 

It  is  urged  that  it  might  be  necessary 
to  admit  certain  backward  peoples,  such 
as  the  Balkan  States,  because  their  geo- 
graphical position  would  make  their  mili- 
tary power  count  in  the  ranks  of  the 
League's  possible  enemies.  This  is  a  se- 
rious argument,  to  be  pondered  against 
the  fact  that  the  presence  of  poorly  gov- 
erned States  in  the  League  would  be  an 
element  of  weakness  to  it. 

To  admit  a  few  States  from  which  a 
strong  purpose  of  justice  was  absent 
might  not  do  much  harm,  since  they 
would  be  wholly  outweighed  in  the 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        85 

League's  councils.  But  to  receive  a 
number  of  States  of  this  character  would 
doom  the  League  to  failure.  -  The  argu- 
ment that  the  leading  Allies  are  bound  to 
advocate  the  admission  of  Serbia  and 
Montenegro  because  they  are  at  present 
brothers  in  arms  is  not  conclusive.  If 
Germany,  under  a  changed  dynasty  and 
regime,  becomes  a  member  of  the  League, 
as  we  hope  she  will,  the  omission  of  Tur- 
key from  the  list  may  well  be  claimed  to 
offset  the  omission  of  Serbia  and  Monte- 
negro. 

XIV 

INFLUENTIAL     SUPPORT 

The  first  indication  of  President  Wil- 
son's sympathy  with  the  idea  of  a  league 
of  nations  came  in  a  speech  at  Des 
Moines,  Feb.  1,  1916,  where  he  used 
these  earnest  words :  "  I  pray  God  that 
if  this  contest  have  no  other  result,  it 
will  at  least  have  the  result  of  creating 
an  international  tribunal  and  producing 


86  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

some  sort  of  joint  guarantee  of  peace  on 
the  part  of  the  great  nations  of  the 
world." 

In  his  address  to  the  League  to  En- 
force Peace  at  Washington,  May  27, 
1916,  Mr.  Wilson  expressed  the  confi- 
dent belief  that  the  United  States  would 
be  ready,  at  the  proper  time,  to  j  oin  "  an 
universal  association  of  the  nations  .  .  . 
to  prevent  any  war  begun  either  con- 
trary to  treaty  covenants  or  without 
warning  and  full  submission  of  the 
causes  to  the  opinion  of  the  world  —  a 
virtual  guarantee  of  territorial  integ- 
rity and  political  independence."  His 
position,  thus  proclaimed  to  the  world, 
attracted  widespread  attention  abroad 
and  caused  the  movement  to  be  taken 
much  more  seriously  by  foreign  govern- 
ments and  peoples. 

The  platform  of  the  Democratic 
Party,  of  which  party  Mr.  Wilson  was 
the  candidate  for  re-election  to  the  Presi- 
dency, contained  the  following :  "  The 
world  has  a  right  to  be  free  from  every 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        87 

disturbance  of  its  peace  that  has  its  ori- 
gin in  aggression  or  disregard  of  the 
rights  of  peoples  and  nations :  and  we  be- 
lieve that  the  time  has  come  when  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  United  States  to  jom  with 
other  nations  of  the  world  in  any  feasi- 
ble association  that  will  effectively  serve 
these  principles,  etc." 

In  August  the  President  was  author- 
ized by  act  of  Congress  to  invite  the 
Great  Powers  to  a  conference  after  the 
war  with  the  object  of  promoting  "an 
organization,  a  court  of  arbitration,  or 
other  body,  to  which  disputed  questions 
between  nations  shall  be  referred  for  ad- 
judication and  peaceful  settlement  and 
to  consider  the  question  of  disarmament 
and  submit  their  recommendations  to 
their  respective  governments  for  ap- 
proval." 

Several  State  Legislatures  had  pre- 
viously endorsed  the  program  of  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace. 

In  the  course  of  the  presidential  cam- 
paign Mr.  Wilson  made  frequent  refer- 


88  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ence  to  the  subject  of  a  League,  never 
more  eloquently  than  at  Cincinnati,  Oct. 
27,  1916,  when  he  said:  "The  nations 
of  the  world  must  get  together  and  say, 
'  Nobody  can  hereafter  be  neutral  as 
respects  the  disturbance  of  the  world's 
peace  for  an  object  which  the  world's 
opinion  cannot  sanction.'  The  world's 
peace  ought  to  be  disturbed  if  the  fun- 
damental rights  of  humanity  are  in- 
vaded, but  it  ought  not  to  be  disturbed 
for  any  other  thing  that  I  can  think  of, 
and  America  was  established  in  order  to 
vindicate,  at  any  rate  in  one  Government, 
the  fundamental  rights  of  man.  Amer- 
ica must  hereafter  be  ready  as  a  member 
of  the  family  of  nations  to  exert  her 
whole  force,  moral  and  physical,  to  the 
assertion  of  those  rights  throughout  the 
round  globe." 

To  what  extent  an  election  gives  the 
successful  party  a  mandate  on  this  or 
that  particular  issue  in  a  long  series  of 
issues  must  always  remain  uncertain. 
But  significance  attaches  to  the  very  in- 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        89 

sertion  of  the  League  plank  in  the  Demo- 
cratic platform  as  reflecting  the  opinion 
of  politicians  that  it  would  advantage 
the  party,  and  to  the  further  fact  that 
the  principle  so  endorsed  was  not  com- 
bated by  the  opposition  party  in  the 
course  of  the  campaign.  In  fact,  the 
opposing  candidate,  Charles  E.  Hughes, 
expressed  most  hearty  approval  of  it. 
In  his  address  at  Baltimore,  Oct.  10,  he 
pointed  to  the  need  of  organizing  peace 
through  provision  for  the  adjustment  of 
international  disputes  by  judicial  meth- 
ods and  by  conciliation,  backed  by  ap- 
propriate means  to  secure  resort  to  such 
methods,  and  by  frequent  conferences 
called  to  correct  trouble-brewing  condi- 
tions. He  expressed  the  desire  to  sec 
the  United  States  give  these  measures  its 
full  support  and,  moreover,  aid  them  in  a 
practical  way  by  manning  its  State  De- 
partment and  diplomatic  posts  with  the 
best  talent. 

Mr.    Taft,    former   President    of   the 
United   States   under   a   Republican    ad- 


90          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ministration  and  a  most  convincing 
speaker,  took  an  active  part  in  the  presi- 
dential campaign,  and  embraced  every 
opportunity  to  advance  the  cause  of  a 
league  of  nations. 

One  of  Mr.  Taft's-  important  contri- 
butions consisted  in  showing  that  for  the 
United  States  to  assume  the  responsi- 
bility that  would  devolve  on  it  under  the 
League  would  not  be  extra-legal,  that 
the  Government  already  has  full  power 
under  the  Constitution  to  do  this  thing 
and  is  in  fact  doing  it  now  under  the 
treaties  by  which  it  guarantees  the  in- 
tegrity of  Cuba  and  Panama. 

In  other  words,  to  enter  the  League 
agreement  would  not  be  delegating  the 
power  to  make  war,  which  power  resides 
in  the  Congress  alone.  As  previously 
stated,  when  the  conditions  calling  for 
war  arise  under  the  proposed  League 
compact,  as  under  the  treaties  with  Cuba 
and  Panama,  it  is  still  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  which,  in  discharge  of 
treaty  obligations  previously  assumed, 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        91 

will  actually  be  called  upon  to  declare 
war  before  the  United  States  can  go  to 
war.  Of  course  minor  military  opera- 
tions are  not  dignified  by  the  name  of  war 
and  may  be  undertaken  at  the  instance  of 
the  Executive  Department  of  the  Govern- 
ment alone.  Such  was  the  participation 
of  the  United  States  in  the  expedition  to 
Peking  in  the  Boxer  uprising,  its  second 
entry  into  Cuba  to  re-establish  orderly 
government  in  1906;  and  such  is  the  ex- 
pedition in  which  it  is  engaging  to  help 
suppress  insurrection  in  Cuba  at  the 
very  moment  this  treatise  is  being  writ- 
ten. 

The  conviction  on  the  part  of  Mr. 
Wilson  that  the  United  States  was 
ready  to  join  a  league  of  nations  in  the 
interests  of  peace  discloses  itself  espe- 
cially in  his  remarkable  message  to  the 
Senate,  Jan.  22,  1917.  After  stating 
that  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  peace  at 
the  end  of  the  present  war  "  must  be  fol- 
lowed by  some  definite  concert  of  power 
which  will  make  it  virtually  impossible 


92          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

that  any  such  catastrophe  should  over- 
whelm us  again,"  he  says :  "  It  is  incon- 
ceivable that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  should  play  no  part  in  that  great 
enterprise."  ..."  That  service  is  noth- 
ing less  than  this  —  to  add  their  au- 
thority and  their  power  to  the  author- 
ity and  force  of  other  nations  to  guar- 
antee peace  and  justice  throughout  the 
world."  This  organized  force  must  be 
so  preponderant  that  no  nation  or  prob- 
able combination  of  nations  can  with- 
stand it. 

It  will  be  observed  that  President  Wil- 
s.on  refers  to  guaranteeing  peace  and 
justice.  To  undertake  either  of  these 
things  would  be  going  much  further  than 
is  proposed  by  the  League  to  Enforce 
Peace. 

The  first  would  mean  that  no  signa- 
tory to  the  League  agreement  would  be 
allowed  to  go  to  war  with  a  fellow- 
signatory  even  after  it  had  conformed 
to  the  demand  of  the  League  for  an  in- 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        93 

quiry  into  the  dispute,  and,  furthermore, 
that  the  operations  of  the  League  would 
extend  even  to  non-signatories.  That  is 
to  say,  that  it  would  forbid  war  every- 
where under  all  conditions. 

To  realize  the  second  of  President 
Wilson's  aims,  i.e.,  to  guarantee  justice, 
would  mean  that  the  judgments  and 
awards  of  the  Court  and  Council  of  Con- 
ciliation must  be  enforced.  This  is 
something  to  which  the  League,  it  is 
true,  looks  forward  as  a  certain  out- 
come of  the  movement  in  the  fulness  of 
time  but  for  the  immediate  inauguration 
of  which  it  had  not  hoped.  The  position 
of  the  American  group  is  that  it  will  cer- 
tainly not  combat  the  President  in  these 
lofty  aims.  It  wishes  him  godspeed. 
If  the  larger  purpose  can  be  achieved 
now,  so  much  the  better.  At  the  same 
time  it  will  abstain  from  enlarging  its 
own  program,  in  the  belief  that  when  the 
test  comes  it  will  be  found  that  the  more 
modest  program  is  the  one  which  is 


94          LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

alone  capable  of  realization  in  the  pres- 
ent stage  of  world  relations  and  opin- 
ion. 

In  his  epoch-making  war  message  to 
the  Senate,  Apr.  2,  1917,  President  Wil- 
son said  that  his  aim  was  still  "  concert 
of  purpose  and  of  action "  among  the 
nations  to  make  peace  and  justice  se- 
cure, and  added  these  significant  words : 
"  A  steadfast  concert  for  peace  can 
never  be  maintained  except  by  a  part- 
nership of  democratic  nations.  No  au- 
tocratic government  could  be  trusted  to 
keep  faith  within  it  or  observe  its  cove- 
nants. It  must  be  a  league  of  honour, 
a  partnership  of  opinion.  Intrigue 
would  eat  its  vitals  away;  the  plottings 
of  inner  circles  who  could  plan  what 
they  would  and  render  account  to  no  one 
would  be  a  corruption  seated  at  its 
very  heart.  Only  free  peoples  can  hold 
their  purpose  and  their  honour  steady 
to  a  common  end  and  prefer  the  inter- 
ests of  mankind  to  any  narrow  interest 
of  their  own." 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        95 

The  danger  to  the  peace  of  the  world 
residing  in  autocracy,  a  danger  pointed 
out  long  ago  by  Kant,  has  been  revealed 
anew  and  in  awful  guise  by  the  present 
war.  But  autocracy  will  not  disappear 
unless  democracy  shall  prove  itself  its 
equal  in  war.  That  is  an  issue  which  the 
Great  War  has  thrust  upon  the  stage  as 
never  before. 

Democracy,  with  all  its  priceless, 
proven  advantages  to  men,  is  always 
practised  at  the  cost  of  efficiency  in  gov- 
ernment. It  is  at  the  cost  of  efficiency 
in  time  of  peace  and  more  so  in  time  of 
war.  Of  course  autocracy,  by  becoming 
tyranny,  may  result  in  misrule,  immeas- 
urable inefficiency,  corruption  and  injus- 
tice. But  given  equal  ability  in  the  peo- 
ple and  honesty  in  administration,  an  au- 
tocratic government  can  go  more  directly 
to  its  goal,  can  go  farther  and  save  time 
and  waste.  The  recognized  weakness  in 
it  as  a  permanent  system  is  the  difficulty 
of  making  sure  that  the  autocrat  will 
prove  to  be  a  benevolent  autocrat.  No 


96  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

system  that  men  have  devised  has  suc- 
ceeded in  solving  that  problem.  The 
principle  of  heredity  certainly  does  not 
solve  it,  and  in  the  absence  of  heredity 
the  death  of  the  ruler  may  be  the  signal 
for  civil  war  if  not  anarchy. 

Justice  is  the  growing  purpose  of  the 
world  and  it  has  become  clear  that,  by 
and  large,  justice  is  best  secured  under 
free  institutions.  Liberty,  hallowed  and 
inspiring  though  the  term  may  be,  is, 
after  all,  only  a  means  to  an  end.  That 
end  is  justice.  Political  liberty  alone 
does  not  insure  justice.  A  powerful 
class,  either  an  hereditary  aristocracy  or 
conspirators  in  commerce  and  industry, 
as  we  know  to  our  cost,  may  oppress  the 
people  independently  of  the  State.  If 
vigilance  is  the  price  of  freedom  from  op- 
pression by  the  Government  it  is  no  less 
the  price  of  freedom  from  oppression  by 
groups  outside  the  Government.  Sound 
institutions  are  meaningless  unless  prac- 
tised by  a  people  bent  on  making  use  of 


INFLUENTIAL  SUPPORT        97 

them.  Witness  the  many  States,  partic- 
ularly in  the  Western  Hemisphere,  with 
ideal  constitutions  and  admirable  laws,  in 
which  there  exists  anything  but  liberty. 
In  fact,  in  some  of  them,  where  the  people 
are  too  ignorant  or  lack  purpose,  the 
only  time  we  find  "  law  and  order  "  and 
security  of  person  and  property  is  when 
the  constitution  is  tossed  into  the  sea  and 
an  efficient  dictator  establishes  himself  in 
power,  frequently  perpetuating  his  own 
rule.  Form  of  government  is,  then,  not 
a  test  of  democracy.  If  we  are  seeking 
democracies  to  constitute  a  league  of 
peace  we  must  look  beneath  the  form  to 
the  substance. 

Leaders  of  thought  in  Germany  regard 
even  true  democracy  as  still  an  ex- 
periment. They  assert  that  while  we  in 
the  United  States,  for  example,  met  the 
political  test  in  the  Civil  War  we  have  yet 
to  meet  the  social  test  which  can  come 
only  when  the  land  shall  be  overcrowded 
and  we  face  numbers  of  the  disinherited 


98  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

with  the  franchise  in  their  hands.  They 
believe  their  form  of  government  to  be 
superior  and  therefore  do  not  hesitate  to 
endeavour  to  impose  it,  as  part  of  their 
"  kultur,"  on  the  rest  of  the  world.  It 
remains  for  the  democratic  peoples  to 
demonstrate  their  capacity  to  think  true 
in  a  time  of  world-crisis,  to  choose  right 
leaders,  to  have  the  courage  actually  to 
surrender  for  the  time  being  their  cus- 
tomary privileges  and  even  their  consti- 
tutional liberties  in  order  that  these  lead- 
ers may  meet  the  centralized  organization 
of  autocratic  Powers  with  equal  organ- 
ization. Whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
need  of  a  democratized  world  as  a  condi- 
tion precedent  to  the  successful  function- 
ing of  a  league  of  peace,  this  much  is 
true :  the  league  will  not  even  come  into 
existence  if  the  autocratic  Powers  win  the 
present  war. 


ABROAD  99 

XV 

ABROAD 

The  duty  of  securing  foreign  co- 
operation in  the  movement  rested  on  a 
special  committee.21  The  writer,  who 
was  rashly  entrusted  with  the  chairman- 
ship of  this  committee,  was  in  England 
for  two  months  in  the  winter  of  1916. 
He  prepared  an  article  for  The  Nation,22 
conferred  with  many  individuals  on  the 
subject,  and  addressed  several  groups. 
Lord  Bryce  was  most  generous  of  his  time 
and  most  helpful  in  this  connection. 
Through  his  instrumentality  the  writer 
was  given  an  interview  at  the  Foreign 
Office  on  Mar.  17  with  Viscount  (then 
Sir  Edward)  Grey,  who  declared  his 
hearty  sympathy  with  the  project  of  the 
League  and  expressed  the  view  that  if 
some  such  plan  had  been  in  operation 
when  the  present  war  threatened,  Ger- 
many would  have  been  forced  to  accept 
the  offer  of  a  conference  and  the  war 


100        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

would  not  have  been.  He  added  that  he 
would  even  go  further  than  our  pro- 
gram: he  would  enforce  the  judgment  or 
award  if  the  people  would  stand  for  it. 
Like  Mr.  Taft  he  felt  that,  in  the  gen- 
eral interest,  nations  should  face  the 
possibility  of  an  occasional  adverse  de- 
cision and  be  willing  to  submit  all  ques- 
tions to  arbitration  or  judicial  decision. 
But  several  attempts  to  draw  from 
him  an  expression  of  opinion  as  to 
whether  the  Great  Powers  would  in  fact 
accept  this  additional  feature  of  a  com- 
mon agreement  brought  no  result.  It 
was  evident  that  he  himself  entertained 
doubts  on  this  score.  And  here  let  it  be 
said  that,  while  enforcement  of  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Court  or  award  of  the  tri- 
bunal of  inquiry  and  conciliation  would 
undoubtedly  make  for  justice  and  put  a 
much  more  effective  check  on  war,  great 
practical  difficulties  stand  in  the  way  of 
getting  such  a  program  accepted.  For 
example,  the  United  States  might  have 
up  the  question  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 


ABROAD  101 

Japan  the  question  of  Korea  or  Man- 
churia or  of  her  influence  in  China,  Great 
Britain  the  question  of  Gibraltar  or 
Egypt  or  India.  Would  the  govern- 
ments of  these  countries  consent  to  en- 
ter into  a  league  which  compelled  them 
not  only  to  submit  such  questions  for  a 
hearing  but  also  to  abide  by  the  award? 
There  is  a  general  feeling  among  the 
advocates  of  the  League,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  in  the  United  States,  that,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  awards  of  the 
Council  of  Conciliation,  the  judgments 
of  the  Court,  supposed  to  deal  with 
purely  justiciable  matters,  should  be 
enforceable.  As  already  indicated,  the 
difficulty  is  that  some  tribunal,  prefera- 
bly the  Court  itself,  must  pass  upon  the 
question  of  jurisdiction.  So  the  query 
again  immediately  presents  itself:  Will 
the  Great  Powers  consent  to  enter  into 
an  agreement  which  involves  the  risk  of 
having  questions  which  may  not  be  purely 
justiciable,  questions  which  may  really 
arise  out  of  conflicts  of  political  policy, 


JJT?T> 


102        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

interpreted  as  justiciable  questions  and 
so  brought  within  the  area  of  compulsory 
settlement?  In  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
writer  on  Jan.  11,  1916,  Lord  Bryce 
said :  "  To  me  your  plan  of  compelling 
recourse  to  arbitration,  rather  than 
using  compulsion  at  a  later  stage,  seems 
the  better  plan." 

At  this  time  Lord  Bryce's  group  was 
still  at  work  on  its  enlightening  exam- 
ination of  the  project.  The  Fabian  So- 
ciety, the  League  of  Nations  Society,  and 
several  individuals  had  published  most 
helpful  studies  of  the  problem.  G. 
Lowes  Dickinson,  who  was  a  leading 
member  of  several  English  groups  and 
who  had  presented  some  of  the  results  of 
their  studies  in  an  American  magazine, 
was  on  a  special  pilgrimage  to  the 
United  States  to  confer  with  the  leaders 
there.  From  the  beginning  there  has 
been  a  desire  on  the  part  of  both  the 
American  and  English  groups  to  have 
their  programs  harmonize,  and  in  all 
essentials  they  really  do  harmonize. 


ABROAD  103 

Following  the  interview  with  Sir  Ed- 
ward Grey  the  writer  made  to  him  by 
letter  (Mar.  25)  the  suggestion  that 
"just  as  Lincoln,  in  the  middle  of  our 
Civil  War,  won  the  sympathy  of  the 
world  for  the  Northern  cause  by  his 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  so  Great 
Britain  and  her  allies  would  greatly  ad- 
vance their  cause,  already  strong,  in  the 
neutral  world,  and  would  at  the  same 
time  stiffen  the  purpose  of  their  own 
peoples  and  armies,  by  declaring  for 
*  some  sort  of  joint  guarantee  of  peace 
on  the  part  of  the  great  nations  ' —  Pres- 
ident Wilson's  phrase  —  to  be  set  up 
after  the  war."  In  his  reply,  dated 
Apr.  7,  Sir  Edward  stated  that  he  was 
entirely  in  sympathy  with  what  had  been 
urged,  that  the  difficulty  was  in  making 
public  announcements  at  a  time  and  in 
language  which  prevented  them  from 
being  misunderstood,  but  that  the  mat- 
ter would  be  kept  in  mind. 

While  Sir  Edward's  general  attitude 
on  European  affairs  pointed  to  him  as  a 


104        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

man  likely  to  sympathize  with  the  move- 
ment for  improved  international  organ- 
ization, he  had  said  nothing  in  public 
recently  to  indicate  approval  of  the 
project.  Going  back,  however,  to  1911, 
we  find  him  asserting  in  the  House  of 
Commons  (Mar.  13)  that  the  disastrous 
effects  of  modern  wars  on  the  neutral 
as  well  as  on  the  belligerent  would  tend  to 
bring  nations  together  in  an  agreement 
to  keep  the  peace  of  the  world.  He 
predicted  that  we  would  not  get  limita- 
tion of  armaments  until  nations,  like  in- 
dividuals, came  to  regard  an  appeal  to 
law,  not  force,  as  the  natural  course  for 
them  to  take.  But  he  did  not  consider 
it  impossible  that  some  day  they  may 
discover  that  "  law  is  a  better  remedy 
than  force,  and  that,  in  all  the  time  they 
have  been  in  bondage  to  this  tremendous 
expenditure,  the  prison  door  has  been 
locked  on  the  inside."  ..."  Some  ar- 
mies and  navies  would  remain,  no  doubt, 
but  they  would  remain  then  not  in  ri- 


ABROAD  105 

valry  with  each  other  but  as  the  police 
of  the  world." 

His  proposals  to  Germany  on  the  eve 
of  the  war  of  course  involved  the  idea 
of  joint  guarantees  as  did  his  letter  to 
the  press  Aug.  26,  1915,  in  which  he 
said :  "  If  there  are  to  be  guarantees 
against  future  war,  let  them  be  equal, 
comprehensive  and  effective  guarantees 
that  bind  Germany  as  well  as  other  na- 
tions, including  ourselves."  Sir  Ed- 
ward had  also  said  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, Jan.  26,  1916:  "But  the  great 
object  to  be  attained  —  and,  until  it  is 
attained,  the  War  must  proceed  —  is 
that  there  shall  not  again  be  this  sort  of 
militarism  in  Europe,  which  in  time  of 
peace  causes  the  whole  of  the  Continent 
discomfort  by  its  continual  menace,  and 
then,  when  it  thinks  the  moment  has 
come  that  suits  itself,  plunges  the  Conti- 
nent into  war." 

On  his  return  home  the  writer  felt  at 
liberty  to  announce  Sir  Edward's  ac- 


106        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

ceptance  of  the  plan  of  the  League  to 
Enforce  Peace  and  made  mention  of  it 
at  a  dinner  in  New  York,  May  12,  1916. 
This,  the  first  public  announcement  since 
1911  that  he  supported  the  idea  of  a 
league  of  nations,  appeared  in  the  Amer- 
ican press  and  was  transmitted  as  a 
Central  News  dispatch  to  the  English 
press.  On  May  13  there  likewise  ap- 
peared in  the  Chicago  Daily  News  Ed- 
ward Price  Bell's  important  interview 
with  Sir  Edward.  It  is  there  said: 
"  Long  before  the  war  Sir  Edward  hoped 
for  a  league  of  nations  that  would  be 
united,  quick  and  instant  to  prevent,  and, 
if  need  be,  punish  violations  of  interna- 
tional treaties,  of  public  right,  and  of 
national  independence,  and  would  say  to 
the  nations  that  came  forward  with 
grievances  and  claims :  '  Put  them  be- 
fore an  impartial  tribunal;  subject  your 
claims  to  the  test  of  law  or  the  judgment 
of  impartial  men.  If  you  can  win  at  this 
bar  you  will  get  what  you  want;  if  you 
cannot  you  shall  not  have  what  you  want ; 


ABROAD  107 

and  if  you  start  war  we  shall  all  adjudge 
you  the  common  enemy  of  humanity  and 
treat  you  accordingly.  As  footpads, 
burglars,  and  incendiaries  are  suppressed 
in  a  community,  so  those  who  would  com- 
mit these  crimes  and  incalculably  more 
than  these  crimes,  will  be  suppressed 
among  the  nations.' '  This  article  was 
followed  by  a  second  public  declaration 
in  the  form  of  an  open  letter  addressed 
to  Mr.  Herman  Bernstein,  New  York, 
dated  June  5,  1916,  in  which  he  ex- 
pressed the  belief  that  the  best  work  neu- 
trals could  do  was  to  cultivate  opinion 
in  favour  of  an  agreement  between  na- 
tions which  would  prevent  a  return  of 
such  a  catastrophe  as  the  present  war. 
Then  came  Sir  Edward's  address  to  the 
representatives  of  the  foreign  press  in 
London,  Oct.  23,  1916,  embodying  a 
most  positive  and  direct  approval  of  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace  in  these  words : 
"  In  the  United  States  a  league  has  al- 
ready sprung  up,  supported  by  various 
distinguished  people,  with  the  object, 


108        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

not  of  interfering  with  belligerents  in 
this  war,  but  of  getting  ready  for  some 
international  association,  after  this  war 
is  over,  which  shall  do  its  part  in  mak- 
ing peace  secure  in  future.  I  would  like 
to  say  that  if  we  seem  to  have  little  time 
to  give  to  such  ideas  ourselves  while  we 
are  engaged  in  this  struggle,  such  a 
work  in  neutral  countries  is  one  to 
which  we  should  all  look  with  favour  and 
with  hope.  .  .  .  We  say  to  neutrals 
who  are  occupying  themselves  with  this 
question  that  we  are  in  favour  of  it. 
.  .  .  The  object  of  this  league  is  to  in- 
sist upon  treaties  being  kept  and  some 
other  settlement  being  tried  before  re- 
sort to  war.  In  July,  1914,  there  was 
no  such  league  in  existence.  Supposing 
a  generation  hence  such  a  condition  of 
things  as  in  July,  1914,  recurs  and  there 
is  such  a  league  in  existence,  it  may, 
and  it  ought  to  keep  the  peace.  Every- 
thing will  depend  upon  whether  the  na- 
tional sentiment  behind  it  is  so  pene- 
trated by  the  lessons  of  this  war  as  to 


ABROAD  109 

feel  that  in  the  future  each  nation,  al- 
though not  immediately  concerned  in 
this  dispute,  is  doing  something,  even  if 
it  be  by  force,  to  keep  the  peace." 

Finally  the  distinguished  Secretary  of 
State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  now  become 
Viscount  Grey,  sent  to  the  League  the 
following  cable,  read  at  their  New  York 
dinner  Nov.  24 :  "I  think  public  utter- 
ances must  have  already  made  it  clear 
that  I  sincerely  desire  to  see  a  league  of 
nations  formed  and  made  effective  to  se- 
cure future  peace  of  the  world  after  this 
war  is  over.  I  regard  this  as  the  best, 
if  not  the  only,  prospect  of  preserving 
treaties  and  of  saving  the  world  from 
aggressive  wars  in  years  to  come.  If 
there  is  any  doubt  about  my  sentiments 
in  the  matter,  I  hope  this  telegram  in  re- 
ply to  your  own  will  remove  it." 

In  this  history  of  the  American  move- 
ment Viscount  Grey's  attitude  is  dealt 
with  in  detail  because  he  has  been  its 
best  and  earliest  friend  among  the  states- 
men in  power  in  Europe,  because  his  open 


110        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

support  influenced  the  attitude  of  other 
European  statesmen,  and  because  the  en- 
dorsement of  the  project  by  these  men, 
added  to  the  acceptance  of  it  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  made  it  plain  that  the  ques- 
tion was  no  longer  merely  academic  but 
had  entered  the  realm  of  practical  poli- 
tics. 

Among  the  various  references  by  Mr. 
Asquith,  while  Prime  Minister,  to  con- 
certed action  to  prevent  war,  the  follow- 
ing statement  of  the  conditions  on  which 
the  triumph  of  public  right  must  ulti- 
mately depend  probably  stands  out  as 
the  most  direct  and  satisfactory : 
"  safeguards  resting  upon  the  common 
will  of  Europe,  and  I  hope,  not  of  Eu- 
rope alone,  against  aggression,  against 
international  covetousness  and  bad  faith, 
against  the  wanton  recourse  in  case  of 
dispute  to  the  use  of  force  and  the  dis- 
turbance of  peace ;  finally,  as  the  result 
of  it  all,  a  great  partnership  of  nations 
federated  together  in  the  joint  pursuit  of 
a  freer  and  fuller  life,  etc."  23 


ABROAD  111 

A  similar  hearty  approval  of  the  move- 
ment is  disclosed  by  Arthur  J.  Balfour 
in  the  interview  with  Edward  Marshall 
which  appeared  in  the  London  Times, 
May  18,  1916.  In  it  we  find  the  asser- 
tion that  international  law  must  remain 
weak  "  so  long  as  it  is  unsupported  by 
international  authority."  ..."  Law  is 
not  enough.  Behind  law  there  must  be 
power."  While  favouring  arbitration 
and  the  discussion  of  differences  by 
would-be  belligerents  before  peace  is 
broken,  including  special  care  for  the 
security  of  small  States,  he  held  that 
"  all  the  precautions  are  mere  scraps  of 
paper  unless  they  can  be  enforced.  We 
delude  ourselves  if  we  think  we  are  doing 
God  service  merely  by  passing  good  reso- 
lutions. What  is  needed  now,  and  will 
be  needed  so  long  as  militarism  is  uncon- 
quered,  is  the  machinery  for  enforcing 
them ;  and  the  contrivance  of  such  a  ma- 
chinery will  tax  to  its  utmost  the  states- 
manship of  the  world." 

It  should  be  noted  in  passing  that  Mr. 


112        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

Balfour,  like  Mr.  Wilson,  sees  the  need 
of  a  league  which  shall  also  have  power 
to  enforce  the  judgment  of  a  central 
tribunal.  Is  it  his  belief  that  such  a 
league  can  be  instituted  in  our  day  ?  24 

XVI 

FRENCH  AND  GERMAN  VIEWS 

Approval  of  the  project  by  such  men 
convinced  a  great  number  of  Americans 
that  the  plan  was  practical.  An  equally 
important  result  was  its  effect  on  Con- 
tinental opinion.  About  the  middle  of 
September  the  French  Premier,  M. 
Briand,  made  reference  to  "  a  solid  last- 
ing peace,  guaranteed  against  any  re- 
turn of  violence  by  appropriate  interna- 
tional measures."  This  utterance  was 
followed  by  a  letter  addressed  to  the  au- 
thor on  Oct.  25,  1916,  indicating  whole- 
hearted approval  of  the  project  of  the 
League.  M.  Briand's  generous  letter, 
publication  of  which  was  authorized  at 


FRENCH  VIEWS  113 

the  time  of  its  transmittal  by  the  French 
Embassy  at  Washington,  embodies  a  per- 
sonal touch  but  was  intended  none  the 
less  for  the  League.  It  reads  in  part: 

"  In  basing  your  effort  on  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  respect  for  the  rights 
and  wishes  of  the  various  peoples  of  the 
world,  you  are  certain  of  being  on  com- 
mon ground  with  the  countries  which,  in 
the  present  conflict,  are  giving  their 
blood  and  their  resources,  without  count- 
ing the  cost,  to  save  the  independence  of 
the  nations. 

"  No  one  is  better  qualified  than  you 
to  understand  these  sacrifices  because, 
despite  the  neutrality  of  your  country, 
you  have  experienced  it  in  your  closest 
affections  in  the  person  of  a  son,  seriously 
crippled  in  the  service  of  the  Allies.  In 
rendering  homage  to  that  heroism,  I  can 
only  express  the  desire  that  the  noble 
ideas  which  inspired  him  may  guide 
equally  your  League  in  its  attempt  to 
visit,  with  the  heaviest  penalties,  the 


114        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

States  whose  avowed  aim  is  the  subjuga- 
tion of  the  peoples  and  the  destruction  of 
liberty." 

The  German  Government  likewise  for- 
mally approved  the  principle  of  a  league. 
Its  Chancellor,  von  Bethmann-Hollweg, 
overlooking  the  part  which  Germany  had 
played  in  bringing  on  the  "  monstrous 
catastrophe,"  said  in  the  Reichstag  on 
Nov.  9 :  "  When  at  and  after  the  end  of 
the  war  the  world  will  become  fully  con- 
scious of  its  horrifying  destruction  of 
life  and  property,  then  through  the 
whole  of  mankind  will  ring  a  cry  for 
peaceful  arrangements  and  understand- 
ings which,  as  far  as  lies  in  human 
power,  shall  avoid  the  return  of  such  a 
monstrous  catastrophe.  This  cry  will 
be  so  powerful  and  so  justified  that  it 
must  lead  to  some  result.  Germany  will 
honestly  co-operate  in  the  examination 
of  every  endeavour  to  find  a  practical 
solution  of  the  question  and  will  collab- 
orate to  make  its  realization  possible. 
.  The  first  condition  for  evolution  of 


FORMAL  COMMITMENT       115 

international  relations  by  way  of  arbi- 
tration and  peaceful  compromise  of  con- 
flicting interests  should  be  that  no  more 
aggressive  coalitions  are  formed  in  fu- 
ture. Germany  will  at  all  times  be 
ready  to  enter  a  league  for  the  purpose 
of  restraining  the  disturbers  of  peace." 
What  an  awakening!  Let  us  hope 
that  it  will  be  a  chastened  Germany 
which  will  knock  at  the  door  of  the 
League  for  admission.  A  Germany 
which  had  scotched  the  snake,  Prussian- 
ism,  a  Germany  in  which  the  people  ruled 
under  constitutional  government,  would 
not  knock  in  vain.  On  the  contrary  it 
would  be  welcomed  heartily  at  the  coun- 
cil table  of  the  nations. 

XVII 

FORMAL  COMMITMENT 

Although  we  realized  that  such  utter- 
ances by  responsible  men  could  not  have 
been  made  without  consulting  their  col- 
leagues, they  amounted,  after  all,  to  little 


116        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

more  than  an  expression  of  opinion.  It 
was  as  if  Lincoln,  instead  of  issuing  his 
great  proclamation,  had  said :  "  In  my 
opinion  slavery  ought  to  be  abolished 
after  the  war."  How  different  the  effect 
of  such  an  utterance  from  the  actual 
proclamation !  The  fact  will  be  recalled 
that  Lincoln's  proclamation  was  made  in 
September  to  take  effect  the  following 
January.  Lincoln  knew  perfectly  well 
that  the  proclamation,  which  was  aimed 
alone  at  the  States  in  rebellion,  could  not 
take  effect  until  these  States  were 
brought  back  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Federal  Government.  It  was  plainly 
a  commitment  to  a  course  of  conduct  at  a 
future  time.  But,  once  having  made  the 
commitment,  was  it  likely  that  any  weari- 
ness of  the  war  on  the  part  of  the  North 
or  of  the  President  himself  would  induce 
the  Administration  to  compromise  on 
that  great  issue?  There  was  no  lack  of 
effort  to  bring  about  such  compromise, 
the  most  marked  being  the  offer  of  the 
Confederacy  to  join  its  forces  to  those  of 


FORMAL  COMMITMENT       117 

the   North    to    turn    the  French,   under 
Maximilian,  out  of  Mexico. 

Another  fact  which  the  American 
members  of  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace 
carried  in  mind  was  the  disappointments 
which  the  world  suffered  at  the  Congress 
of  Vienna  (1815).  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  Stein  wanted  a  federated 
Germany ;  Alexander  had  liberal  aspira- 
tions to  set  up  a  new  Polish  Kingdom ; 
Great  Britain  wanted  the  immediate 
abolition  of  the  slave  trade;  the  whole 
of  Europe  desired  more  democratic  con- 
trol in  government  everywhere  and  some 
central  organization  among  the  nations 
to  prevent  a  repetition  of  the  disasters 
of  the  Napoleonic  period.  What  hap- 
pened? The  Congress,  after  months  of 
cross  purposes,  did  only  what  it  had 
been  previously  obligated  to  do  by  the 
preliminary  treaties  of  Paris  and  Chau- 
mont.  There  was  such  conflict  of  inter- 
ests, real  and  imaginary,  and  such  im- 
mense labours  were  imposed  on  the  Con- 
gress by  the  need  of  settling  the  affairs 


118         LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

of  so  many  States  and  Principalities  that 
the  larger  purpose  —  if  ever  entertained 
seriously  by  the  leaders  of  the  Congress 
at  all  —  failed  utterly. 

With  this  experience  of  the  world  in 
mind  we  asked  the  chancelleries  of  the 
Allied  Powers  to  examine  the  project  of 
the  League  to  Enforce  Peace  and,  if  pos- 
sible, to  commit  themselves  jointly  and 
formally  to  it.  A  like  request  was  made 
of  the  progressive  neutral  nations. 

What  we  asked,  but  hardly  dared  hope 
for,  we  have  now  got. 

In  their  joint  note  to  Mr.  Wilson  of 
Jan.  10,  1917,  the  Allies  formally  com- 
mit themselves  to  the  project  of  a  league 
of  nations  to  discourage  future  wars. 
Their  words  are:  "They  associate 
themselves  with  all  their  hopes  with  the 
project  for  the  creation  of  a  league  of 
nations  to  insure  peace  and  justice 
throughout  the  world.  They  are  con- 
scious of  all  the  advantages  to  the  cause 
of  humanity  and  civilization  which  would 
flow  from  the  establishment  of  interna- 


tional  rules  designed  to  avoid  violent  con- 
flicts between  nations,  rules  which  must 
provide  the  sanctions  necessary  to  insure 
their  execution  and  so  prevent  a  false 
security  from  serving  simply  to  facilitate 
new  aggressions."  25 

Hall  Caine's  dispatches  to  the  New 
York  Times,  forecasting  the  tenor  of  the 
Allies'  note,  stated  that  it  would  make 
the  establishment  of  a  league  of  nations 
certain. 

Up  to  that  time  the  only  intimation 
we  had  received  that  the  suggestion  of 
an  official  commitment  might  be  acted  on 
favourably  by  the  Allies  came  from  Sir 
Gilbert  Parker,  who,  among  others,  in- 
terested himself  actively  in  the  project. 
A  letter  addressed  by  him  to  the  author 
on  Sept.  19,  1916,  contained  the  follow- 
ing words :  "  I  think  that  your  idea 
of  the  Allies  declaring  in  favour  of 
compulsory  inquiry,  and  a  league  to  en- 
force it  to  be  set  up  after  the  war,  may  be 
carried  out,  but  it  has  not  been  definitely 
settled." 


120        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

Following  the  formal  commitment  by 
the  Allies  to  the  project  came  a  separate 
friendly  despatch  from  Viscount  Motono, 
Japanese  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
who  cabled  through  the  Japanese  Em- 
bassy at  Washington,  under  date  of  Jan. 
15,  the  following:  "I  have  noted  with 
interest  your  unremitting  efforts  to  se- 
cure the  world  against  a  repetition  of  the 
present  convulsion.  All  proposals  di- 
rected to  effect  so  desirable  an  end  must 
be  welcomed  and  carefully  studied  by 
every  one  to  whom  peace  and  good  will 
are  not  empty  names  and  who  has  any 
regard  for  humanity." 

XVIII 

APPROVAL  BY  NEUTRALS 

Two  of  the  neutral  Powers  have  taken 
a  similar  position.  In  fact,  the  first 
favourable  response  to  our  suggestion 
came  from  the  Republic  of  Switzerland. 
Dr.  Arthur  Hoffmann,  head  of  the  Politi- 
cal Department  of  Switzerland,  speaking 


APPROVAL  BY  NEUTRALS   121 

in  the  name  of  his  Government,  addressed 
the  writer  from  Berne  under  date  of  Dec. 
11,  1916,  as  follows: 

"  The  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  which 
counts  among  its  members  so  many  emi- 
nent personalities,  aims  to  insure  the 
maintenance  of  peace  after  it  shall  have 
been  concluded;  truly  a  delicate  mission 
but  the  difficulties  of  which  are  not  to 
be  allowed  to  discourage  your  efforts. 
You  regard  as  one  of  the  most  efficacious 
means  to  that  end  a  treaty  of  arbitration 
conceived  in  the  same  spirit  as  the  treaty 
of  Feb.  3,  1914,  between  Switzerland  and 
the  United  States,  a  treaty  which  all  the 
countries  are  to  sign  and  by  which  they 
will  undertake  to  submit  to  the  decision 
of  a  supreme  international  tribunal  the 
conflicts  which  may  arise  between  them 
in  order  to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  a 
return  of  the  catastrophe  which  desolates 
the  world  today.  Switzerland  is  so 
much  the  better  placed  to  appreciate  the 
work  of  which  the  United  States  has 
taken  the  initiative  because,  surrounded 


122        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

on  all  sides  by  war,  peopled  by  the  race, 
and  inheriting  the  language  and  culture, 
of  three  among  the  combatant  nations, 
she  is  better  able  than  any  other  country 
to  realize  the  fact  that  war  is  inhuman 
and  is  contrary  to  the  superior  interest 
of  civilization  which  is  the  common  patri- 
mony of  all  men. 

"  If,  then,  at  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
the  occasion  should  present  itself  for  us 
to  unite  our  efforts  to  yours,  we  will  not 
fail  to  do  so,  and  we  will  be  happy  to 
make  our  contribution  toward  rendering 
peace  more  secure  when  re-established." 

The  other  country  referred  to  is  Spain. 
Under  date  of  Jan.  13,  1917,  the  For- 
eign Minister  of  Spain,  Don  Amalio  Gi- 
meno,  also  speaking  in  the  name  of  his 
Government,  sent  the  following  cable- 
gram through  the  Spanish  Embassy  at 
Washington : 

"  His  Majesty's  Government  is  follow- 
ing with  keen  sympathy  the  idea  of  estab- 
lishing, after  the  end  of  the  present  war, 
an  international  league  for  the  purpose 


of  preventing  the  peace  of  the  world 
being  again  disturbed,  and  when  the  op- 
portunity of  doing  so  arrives,  with  a 
guarantee  of  success,  will  lend  its  con- 
course to  the  realization  of  such  a  hu- 
manitarian and  lofty  project." 

This  closes  the  list  of  the  formal  com- 
mitments to  the  project  up  to  the  present 
time.  The  Ministers  of  several  other 
foreign  countries  have  shown  personal  in- 
terest in,  and  sympathy  with,  the  plan, 
but  express  rather  their  private  opinions 
than  the  views  of  their  Governments. 

For  example  the  Foreign  Minister  of 
Denmark,  Erik  Scavenius,  in  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  the  writer  and  dated  Oct.  6, 
1916,  says: 

"  The  object  for  which  the  '  League  to 
Enforce  Peace '  is  specially  working,  viz. 
compulsory  arbitration  for  international 
differences  not  settled  by  diplomatic  ne- 
gotiations, has  at  all  times  had  full  sym- 
pathy of  the  Danish  Government.  It 
will  be  sufficient  in  that  respect  to  refer 
to  the  numerous  arbitration  treaties  con- 


124        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

eluded  by  the  Danish  Government  with 
other  states,  and  to  the  fact  that  the 
treaty  of  February  12,  1904,  between 
Denmark  and  the  Netherlands  is  the  first 
treaty  submitting  to  international  arbi- 
tration all  differences  without  exception. 
I  may  also  refer  to  the  stand-point  taken 
by  the  Danish  Government  in  respect  to 
this  question  at  the  second  Hague  Peace 
Conference  in  the  year  1907  (see  '  Actes 
et  Documents  de  la  2ieme  Conference 
Internationale.  La  Haye  1907,'  II.  pag. 
887). 

"  I  should  esteem  it  a  most  valuable 
gain  for  the  peace  of  the  world,  if  those 
principles  could  attain  general  recogni- 
tion." 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  above 
dispatch  commits  His  Excellency  to,  and 
reflects  his  country's  interest  in,  simply 
the  principle  of  inquiry  based  upon  hon- 
ourable obligation,  whereas  the  League 
plans  true  compulsory  inquiry  supported 
by  the  sanction  of  force.  Again,  treaties 
in  pairs  between  countries  knowing  each 


APPROVAL  BY  NEUTRALS   125 

other's  antecedents  and  ambitions  is  quite 
a  different  matter  from  a  common  treaty 
embracing  a  large  group  of  signatories. 
No  doubt  Denmark,  which,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  Netherlands,  set  this  fine 
example  to  the  world  in  negotiating  the 
all-inclusive  treaty  of  Feb.  12,  1904, 
would  be  willing  to  take  the  next  step  and 
extend  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  to  a 
group  of  nations,  provided  the  group  was 
limited  to  countries  with  a  background 
of  tradition  such  as  would  lead  one  rea- 
sonably to  expect  them  to  live  up  to  any 
agreements  they  might  enter  into.  But 
we  have  yet  to  learn  that  she  is  ready 
to  go  the  length  of  the  League  program, 
binding  her  to  join  her  military  forces 
to  those  of  other  members  of  the  League 
in  order  to  compel  inquiry  before  any 
signatory  to  the  common  treaty  is  al- 
lowed to  go  to  war  with  a  fellow  signa- 
tory. 


126        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

XIX 

REMAINING  TASKS 

While,  before  the  Allies  had  sent  their 
masterly  note  to  Mr.  Wilson,  we  con- 
sidered problematic  the  success  of  the 
project  of  a  league  of  nations,  many  of 
us  now  regard  it  as  almost  certain  of 
realization.  It  remains  to  acquaint  the 
intellectual  leaders  in  the  belligerent 
countries  with  the  program,  to  cultivate 
sentiment  favourable  to  it  in  neutral 
lands,  and  —  that  most  difficult  of  all 
tasks  —  to  secure  favourable  action, 
when  the  time  comes,  by  the  United 
States  Senate. 

Out  of  the  bitterness  of  the  time  comes 
experience,  which  is  wisdom.  It  seems 
that  every  generation  requires  to  learn 
anew  the  awful  lesson  of  war.  Many  na- 
tions learned  that  lesson  at  one  and  the 
same  time  in  the  Napoleonic  wars.  Was 
it  not  this  fact  that  made  possible  the 
long  era  of  peace  which  followed?  The 


REMAINING  TASKS  127 

hopeful  side  of  the  present  great  conflict 
is  that  it  may  bring  the  most  powerful 
nations  of  the  earth  into  an  attitude  of 
mind  which  will  make  possible  the  aban- 
donment of  international  anarchy  in 
favour  of  international  organization. 
The  hopeful  thing  for  us  here  in  America 
is  that  out  of  our  own  painful  but  illu- 
minating experience,  now  that  we  are 
drawn  into  the  maelstrom,  will  come  a 
disposition  to  share  with  others  the  re- 
sponsibility for  peace  and  not  sit  in  isola- 
tion as  one  whom  this  great  tragedy  of 
war  does  not  concern. 

It  is  not,  as  has  been  suggested,  the 
unhappy  experiences  we  have  had  in  en- 
deavouring to  straighten  out  the  affairs 
of  certain  Latin-American  countries  in 
order  to  avoid  European  interference  in 
them  which  has  led  us  to  avoid  an  exclu- 
sive American  alliance.  The  true  reason 
why  such  an  alliance  has  never  appealed 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States  is  that 
they  have  far  more  in  common  with  the 
people  of  Europe  than  with  the  people  of 


128        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

Latin-America.  If  such  a  policy  has  any 
standing  at  all  it  is  due  to  the  weak  geo- 
graphical argument  and  to  the  sounder 
sentiment  that  the  United  States,  as  the 
oldest,  most  powerful,  and  most  progres- 
sive of  the  American  republics,  has  excep- 
tional responsibilities  to  her  sister  States 
on  this  continent.  But  it  is  quite  con- 
ceivable that  the  interests  of  the  Ameri- 
can republics  may  be  served  better  by  a 
general  league  of  nations  to  which  the 
United  States  and  the  "  ABC  "  countries 
of  South  America  shall  be  parties  than 
by  a  Pan-American  League  which  would 
lend  nothing  to  the  cause  of  peace  in 
other  parts  of  the  world. 

There  remains  also  the  task  of  elabo- 
rating the  League's  plan  and  of  reaching 
a  common  agreement  in  the  leading  coun- 
tries on  a  tentative  draft  convention  such 
as  is  described  in  an  earlier  chapter  of 
this  book.  To  be  able  to  present  to  the 
congress  which  will  meet  to  settle  the 
multitudinous  problems  arising  out  of  the 
Great  War  an  actual  convention  that  has 


ADDENDUM  129 

received  general  approval  would  multiply 
the  chances  of  success  for  the  project. 
Critics  who  assert  that  a  league  of  na- 
tions cannot  be  formed  until  certain 
burning  national  and  international  ques- 
tions are  settled  put  the  cart  before  the 
horse.  The  truth  is  that  many  of  the 
very  problems  they  have  in  mind  will  not 
be  settled  until  the  League  is  formed. 

ADDENDUM 

PLATFORM  OF  LEAGUE  TO  ENFORCE 
PEACE 

WARRANT    FROM    HISTORY 

Throughout  five  thousand  years  of  re- 
corded history,  peace,  here  and  there  es- 
tablished, has  been  kept,  and  its  area  has 
been  widened,  in  one  way  only.  Individu- 
als have  combined  their  efforts  to  suppress 
violence  in  the  local  community.  Communi- 
ties have  co-operated  to  maintain  the  au- 
thoritative State  and  to  preserve  peace 
within  its  borders.  States  have  formed 
leagues  or  confederations,  or  have  otherwise 
co-operated^  to  establish  peace  among  them- 


130        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

selves.  Always  peace  has  been  made  and 
kept,  when  made  and  kept  at  all,  by  the 
superior  power  of  superior  numbers  acting 
in  unity  for  the  common  good. 

Mindful  of  this  teaching  of  experience, 
we  believe  and  solemnly  urge  that  the  time 
has  come  to  devise  and  to  create  a  working 
union  of  sovereign  nations  to  establish  peace 
among  themselves  and  to  guarantee  it  by  all 
known  and  available  sanctions  at  their  com- 
mand, to  the  end  that  civilization  may  be 
conserved,  and  the  progress  of  mankind  in 
comfort,  enlightenment  and  happiness  may 
continue. 

PLATFORM 

We  believe  it  to  be  desirable  for  the 
United  States  to  join  a  league  of  nations 
binding  the  signatories  to  the  following: 

First:  All  justiciable  questions  arising 
between  the  signatory  Powers,  not  settled 
by  negotiation,  shall,  subject  to  the  limita- 
tions of  treaties,  be  submitted  to  a  judicial 
tribunal  for  hearing  and  judgement,  both 
upon  the  merits  and  upon  any  issue  as  to  its 
jurisdiction  of  the  question. 

Second:     All  other  questions  arising  be- 


ADDENDUM  131 

tween  the  signatories  and  not  settled  by 
negotiation,  shall  be  submitted  to  a  council 
of  conciliation  for  hearing,  consideration 
and  recommendation. 

Third:  The  signatory  Powers  shall 
jointly  use  forthwith  both  their  economic 
and  military  forces  against  any  one  of  their 
number  that  goes  to  war,  or  commits  acts  of 
hostility,  against  another  of  the  signatories 
before  any  question  arising  shall  be  sub- 
mitted as  provided  in  the  foregoing.* 

Fourth:  Conferences  between  the  sig- 
natory Powers  shall  be  held  from  time  to 
time  to  formulate  and  codify  rules  of  in- 
ternational law,  which,  unless  some  signa- 

*  The  following  interpretation  of  Article  3 
has  been  authorized  by  the  Executive  Commit- 
tee: 

"The  signatory  Powers  shall  jointly  employ 
diplomatic  and  economic  pressure  against  any 
one  of  their  number  that  threatens  war  against 
a  fellow  signatory  without  having  first  submitted 
its  dispute  for  international  inquiry,  concilia- 
tion, arbitration  or  judicial  hearing,  and  awaited 
a  conclusion,  or  without  having  in  good  faith 
offered  so  to  submit  it.  They  shall  follow  this 
forthwith  by  the  joint  use  of  their  military 
forces  against  that  nation  if  it  actually  goes  to 
war,  or  commits  acts  of  hostility,  against  an- 
other of  the  signatories  before  any  question 
arising  shall  be  dealt  with  as  provided  in  the 
foregoing." 


132         LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

tory  shall  signify  its  dissent  within  a  stated 
period,  shall  thereafter  govern  in  the  deci- 
sions of  the  Judicial  Tribunal  mentioned  in 
Article  One. 

NOTES 

1.  Publication  of  all  documents  quoted  in  this 
work  has  been  authorized. 

2.  This  chapter  represents  approximately  the 
conclusions  thus  far  reached  by  a  private  study- 
group,  not  a  committee  of  the  League  to  En- 
force Peace,  though  drawn  largely  from  its  lead- 
ing   members.    The    subject    was    examined    at 
seven  meetings  extending  from  December  15  to 
June  28,  1917.    The  group  was  of  varying  per- 
sonnel, the  names  of  all  who  participated  from 
time  to   time   being   as   follows: 

George  Louis  Beer,  John  Bigelow,  Edwin  M. 
Borchard,  Elmer  Ellsworth  Brown,  John  Bates 
Clark,  William  C.  Dennis,  Samuel  T.  Dutton, 
John  H.  Finley,  Harry  A.  Garfield,  Franklin  H. 
Giddings,  Robert  Goldsmith,  Frank  J.  Goodnow, 
Hamilton  Holt,  George  C.  Holt,  Jeremiah  W. 
Jenks,  A.  Lawrence  Lowell,  Theodore  Marburg, 
Leo  S.  Rowe,  William  H.  Short,  Edwin  Smith, 
James  T.  Shotwell,  Oscar  S.  Straus,  William 
H.  Wadhams,  Eugene  Wambaugh,  Everett  P. 
Wheeler,  Talcott  Williams,  George  Grafton 
Wilson. 

The  labours   of  the  group   will  continue.    It 


NOTES  133 

has  framed  a  Draft  Convention,  still  incomplete, 
designed  to  inaugurate  a  league  of  nations.  The 
section  relating  to  the  Court  was  prepared  by  a 
Sub-Committee  consisting  of  Everett  P.  Wheeler, 
Eugene  Wambaugh,  George  Grafton  Wilson,  and 
W.  C.  Dennis. 

3.  It  is  with  this  in  view  that  the  term,  "  con- 
tracting   Powers,"    instead    of    "  States    of    the 
League,"  is  used  in  this  section. 

4.  The    Backward    Nation,    The    Independent, 
June  20,  1912.     The  article  was  reprinted  by  the 
Bern  Peace  Bureau  in  English,  French,  and  Ger- 
man, and  comment  on  it  by  publicists  in  America 
and  abroad  appeared  in  The  Independent,  Nov.  7, 
1912,  March  6,  1913,  and  Sept.  9,  1913. 

5.  A  League  of  Peace,  Hamilton  Holt,  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Third  American  Peace  Congress. 

6.  Address  before  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, June,  1910. 

7.  Christiania  address,  May  5,  1910. 

8.  The  Independent,  Sept.  28,  1914. 

9.  Ibid.,  Oct.  26,  1914. 

10.  Those  who  took  part  in  the  three  prelimi- 
nary meetings   (Jan.  25th,  Jan.  31st,  and  March 
30th,    1915)     were:     John    Bates    Clark,    Frank 
Crane,  Irving  Fisher,  Franklin  H.  Giddings,  John 
Hays    Hammond,    George    C.    Holt,    Hamilton 
Holt,  Harold  J.  Howland,  William  B.  Howland, 
William  I.  Hull,  Jeremiah  W.  Jenks,  Frederick 
N.    Judson,    George    W.    Kirchwey,    Frederick 
Lynch,  Theodore  Marburg,  George  M.  Plimpton, 
John   A.   Stewart,  William  H.  Short,  James  L. 


Tryon,    Everett    P.    Wheeler,    Westel    W.    Wil- 
loughby,  Theodore  S.  Woolsey. 

11.  World   Court   and  League  of  Peace,  the 
author,  Judicial  Settlement  Quarterly,  Feb.,  1914. 

12.  In   this   connection  we   are   at  once  con- 
fronted with  the  question  whether  a  neutralized 
State  can  properly  incur  the  obligations  resting 
on  a  member  of  the  League.     In  addressing  him- 
self  to   this    problem   a   French   writer — Gaston 
Moch,  La  Ouarantie  de  la  Societe  des  Nations — 
sets  up  the  alternate  views  that  the  position  of 
a  neutralized  State  would  not  prevent  its  parti- 
cipation   in   purely    police   measures   undertaken 
by  the  League  in  the  common  interest,  and  that 
if  this  assertion  does  not  hold  and  the  neutral- 
ized State  should  in  fact  be  debarred  from  com- 
mon military  action  it  might  still  be  called  upon 
to   use   the    purely   pacific   penalties    against   an 
offending   signatory.     Are   either   of   these   posi- 
tions sound?     How  long  would  the  "guaranteed" 
neutrality  of  a  State  be  respected   on  the  out- 
break of  war  if  its  neighbor  knew  that  the  State 
in  question  was  free,  as  a  member  of  the  League 
to  attack  it,  the  neighbor?     Commercial  boycott, 
practiced  by  the  neutralized  State,  would  be  al- 
most an  equally  severe  strain  on  the  neutraliza- 
tion compact.     While  it  has  its  manifest  disad- 
vantages, there  is  probably  no  other  position  to 
take  than  that  the  neutralized  State  shall  be  left 
out  of  a  league  and,  as  under  the  old  conditions, 
shall  be  asked  to  do  nothing  except  defend  its 
own  territory  when  invaded.     The  disadvantages 


NOTES  135 

of  such  a  conclusion  are  that  the  League  would 
be  the  poorer  by  the  absence  of  such  progressive 
little  countries  as  Belgium  and  Switzerland,  free 
from  disturbing  ambitions — poorer  by  the  lack 
of  the  additional  balance  they  would  give  to  its 
deliberations,  and  by  the  lack  of  their  coopera- 
tion in  applying  economic  pressure.  Further 
light  is  needed  on  this  problem. 

13.  Participants  in  the  fourth  meeting,  April 
9,    1915,    were: — James    M.    Beck,    John    Bates 
Clark,  J.  Reuben  Clark,  Jr.,  William  C.  Dennis, 
John   Hays   Hammond,   Hamilton   Holt,   Harold 
J.   Howland,   William   B.   Howland,   Andrew  B. 
Humphrey,    Darwin    P.    Kingsley,    George    W. 
Kirchwey,  A.  Lawrence  Lowell,  Frederick  Lynch, 
Theodore  Marburg,   Henry   S.   Pritchett,  Leo  S. 
Rowe,  William  H.  Short,  Albert  Shaw,  John  A. 
Stewart,  William  Howard  Taft. 

14.  "Peace  Through  Justice,"  by  James  Brown 
Scott. 

15.  The  preamble  to  the  platform,  revealing 
the  tendency  throughout  history  to  secure  peace 
through  ever-widening  group-action,  was  written 
by  Franklin  H.  Giddings. 

16.  The  attention  which  the  movement  has  at- 
tracted is  instanced  by  the  fact  that  in  the  week 
ending  Feb.  3,  1917,  twenty-three  hundred  news- 
paper  clippings   referring   to  the   League   were 
received  at  the  central  office.    Money  contribu- 
tions   to    the    propaganda    up    to    April,    1917, 
amounted   to  one   hundred   and   thirty-six  thou- 
sand  dollars.    The   successful   financing  of   the 


136        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

League  is  due  principally  to  Herbert  S.  Houston 
and  Edward  A.  Filene.  Both  have  likewise 
been  prominent  in  the  campaign  of  education. 

A.  Lawrence  Lowell,  who  played  a  leading  part 
in  finally  deciding  upon  the  actual  platform  of 
the  League,  has  since  then  been  most  active  in 
spreading  a  knowledge  of  its  principles  in  the 
press  and  from  the  rostrum,  and,  as  Chairman 
of  the  Executive  Committee,  in  directing  the 
League's  activities. 

Another  source  of  strength  to  the  League,  not 
only  in  connection  with  the  work  of  propaganda 
and  general  administration,  but  from  the  side  of 
the  development  of  its  principles  and  plans,  has 
been  its  Secretary,  William  H.  Short.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  the  League  would  not  be  so  far  along 
unless  this  particular  man  had  occupied  this  par- 
ticular office. 

Still  another  of  the  "  fathers "  is  John  Bates 
Clark.  His  extraordinary  powers  of  clear  think- 
ing which  have  caused  him  for  a  generation  past 
to  be  ranked  among  the  very  foremost  American 
writers  on  political  economy  have  led  us  to  lean 
on  him  throughout  our  examination  of  the  proj- 
ect. His  service  to  the  cause  from  the  side  of 
analysis,  and  as  head  of  one  of  the  active  com- 
mittees of  the  League,  cannot  be  measured. 

Conspicuous  service  to  the  League  has  also 
been  given  by  Talcott  Williams,  who  has  been 
a  source  of  strength  in  council  and  on  the  ros- 
trum; by  George  Grafton  Wilson,  out  of  whose 
survey  of  possible  activities  the  plan  of  fram- 


NOTES  137 

ing  an  actual  Draft  Convention  grew;  by  Eugene 
Wambaugh,  who  has  given  much  time  and 
thought  to  the  admirable  section  relating  to  the 
Court;  and  by  Everett  P.  Wheeler,  who,  as 
member  of  a  committee  of  the  New  York  Bar 
Association,  examined  the  question  some  years 
before  the  present  movement  for  a  true  inter- 
national court  of  justice  began. 

17.  An  eminent  Maryland  lawyer  of  a  former 
generation,   when   a   fellow   member   of  the   bar 
whom  he  disliked  was  referred  to  in  his  pres- 
ence  as   the   Nestor   of  the   Maryland   bar,  ex- 
claimed  "Yes,    a   mare's   nester."     This  kind   of 
Nestor  appears  occasionally  in  the  United  States 
Senate;  and  it  will  be  remembered  that  a  mare's 
nest,  discovered   by  one   of  them   several  years 
ago,  was   a  supposed  Japanese  plot  to  acquire 
and  fortify  Magdalena  Bay.    The  discussion  to 
which  reference  is  made  in  the  text,  is  an  echo 
of  the  former  discussion  and  not  a  new  alarm. 

18.  Article  xiv  by   Cosmos,  and  the  author's 
reply,  N.  Y.  Times,  Dec.  17,  1916. 

19.  The    question    of   precisely    what    Powers 
are   to   be   admitted    to   the   League   has   never 
been    passed    upon    by    any    committee    of    the 
League   to   Enforce   Peace   nor   by   any   of   the 
private  study-groups  referred  to,  although  it  has 
been    frequently    discussed.     It    is    safe    to    say 
that    there    is    no    important    body    of    opinion 
favouring  the  admission  of  all  nations  irrespec- 
tive   of    internal    conditions;    while    there    does 
exist  a  marked  inclination  in  some  quarters  to 


138        LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

limit  membership  in  the  League  to  the  progres- 
sive nations. 

20.  Discussion  of  economic  pressure  is  omitted 
from  this  volume  because  the  author  sees  weighty 
objections  to  its  use  in  any  form  or  under  any 
circumstances.     Throughout  the  earlier  delibera- 
tions he  opposed  the  idea.     But,  as  an  officer  of 
the  League,   he   believes   that   loyalty  to  it   and 
consideration  for  the  larger  positive  side  of  its 
task  alike  demand  that  he  abstain  from  attack- 
ing   that    which    is    become    a    feature    of    the 
League's  platform. 

21.  The    Committee    on    Foreign   organization 
consists    of    John    Grier    Hibben,    Talcott    Wil- 
liams, Harry  A.  Garfield,  John  Hays  Hammond, 
John  Bates  Clark,  Oscar  S.  Straus,  Edward  A. 
Filene,    Herbert    S.    Houston,    William    Dudley 
Foulke,  Myron  T.  Herrick,  Hamilton  Holt,  Theo- 
dore Marburg. 

22.  Issue  of  April  8,  1916. 

23.  Speech  at  Queen's  Hall,  London,  Aug.  4, 
1916. 

24.  A   conversation   with   Mr.    Balfour   at   his 
temporary    quarters    in    Washington,    May    17, 
1917,  left   on   the   author's   mind   the   impression 
that   Mr.    Balfour   was   quite   as   unprepared,  as 
Viscount  Grey  to  say  that  we  could  go  so  far 
at  present  as  to  enforce  the  judgments  of  an 
international    tribunal.     Mr.    Balfour    expressed 
sympathy    with    the    general    purposes    of    the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace,  though,   for  lack  of 
time,  he  had   been  unable,  he  stated,  to  study 


NOTES  139 

its  program  and  was  therefore  not  ready  to  en- 
dorse the  separate  items  of  its  platform. 

25.  The  last  sentence  is  translated  directly 
from  the  French  text  because  of  the  imperfec- 
tions in  the  translation  received  at  Washington 
from  Paris. 


'Frlmted  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


""THE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects 


A  League  to  Enforce  Peace 

BY  ROBERT  GOLDSMITH 

Cloth,  izmo,  $1.50 

An  authoritative  statement  of  the  proposals  put  forth 
by  the  League  formed  in  Independence  Hall  on  July 
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league  of  nations  to  prevent  war  has  found  favor  with 
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telligence of  the  world  may  be  so  directed  and  organized 
as  to  render  future  war  less  likely. 

"  Mr.  Goldsmith  has  made  a  serious  argument  on 
world  politics  exhilarating  and  fascinating  at  the  same  time 
that  it  is  informing  and  convincing." —  Philadelphia  Press. 

"  Very  simply  written,  basing  its  appeal  not  on  rhetoric 
but  on  world  sense  and  the  claims  of  human'  kindness." 
— New  York  World. 

"  I  have  read  Robert  Goldsmith's  book,  A  League  To 
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when  the  world  is  engulfed  in  war,  I  feel  it  is  the  duty 
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stirring  and  helpful  volume.  It  is  one  of  the  best,  if 
not  the  best,  thing  that  has  appeared  on  this  subject." — 
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An  Inquiry  Into  the  Nature  of 
Peace  and  the  Terms  of 
Its  Perpetuation 

BY  THORSTEIN  VEBLEN, 

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perial Germany  and  the  Industrial  Revolution," 
"  The  Instinct  of  Workmanship,"  etc. 

Cloth,  izmo,  $2.00 

Professor  Veblen's  new  book,  "  The  Nature  of  Peace," 
is  a  close  analysis  of  war  and  the  basis  of  peace.  It  is 
of  special  interest  just  now  on  account  of  its  insistence 
upon  the  absolute  destruction  of  the  German  Imperial 
State  as  the  only  assurance  of  a  permanent  peace.  The 
ideals  towards  which  civilization  is  moving  make  the 
elimination  of  the  dynastic  powers  absolutely  necessary. 
"  The  new  situation,"  says  Professor  Vebleri,  "  requires 
the  putting  away  of  the  German  Imperial  establishment 
and  the  military  caste;  the  reduction  of  the  German  peo- 
ples to  a  footing  of  unreserved  democracy." 

A  democratization  of  the  Dynastic  powers,  Japan  and 
Germany,  must  be  followed  by  provisions  for  better  meth- 
ods of  government;  by  more  just  distribution  of  wealth 
for  the  world  at  large;  and  by  a  general  neutralization 
of  citizenship  throughout  the  world.  This,  Professor  Veb- 
len  thinks,  can  be  accomplished  gradually,  perhaps  by 
neutralizing  trade,  colonies,  etc. 

Readers  of  Professor  Veblen's  other  books  will  wel- 
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gestive and  convincing  manner. 


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The  Principle  of  Nationalities 

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"  The  price  of  nationality  is  war." 

Perhaps  no  one  has  more  clearly  seen  the  dangers 
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causes.  He  does  not  believe  that  wars  ever  establish 
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of  racialism  or  by  the  ambition  of  leaders  who,  in  the 
aggrandizement  of  their  own  states,  see  aggrandizement  for 
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and  is  illuminated  by  that  terse  epigrammatic  wisdom  for 
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largely,  however,  in  the  making  of  peace  at  the  end  of 
this  war,  all  intelligent  suggestions  concerning  it  are  to  be 
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interested. A  careful  reading  and  pondering  of  his 
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in  the  advance  declarations  of  what  the  terms  of  peace 
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"  Invigorating  and  brain-clearing." — San  Francisco  Ar- 
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Nationalism 

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ture, Nationalism,  the  lecture  which  of  all  of  those  de- 
livered by  him  on  his  recent  tour  of  the  United  States 
provoked  the  most  discussion  and  comment.  It  is  a  plea 
for  the  wiping  out  of  nationalism,  a  vision  of  the  time 
when  men  shall  live  not  as  citizens  of  this  or  that  country, 
but  as  citizens  of  the  world.  With  many  striking  illus- 
trations from  history,  the  distinguished  author  points  out 
the  damage  that  has  been  done  in  the  past  through  the 
spirit  of  nationalism  and  shows  how  mankind  can  reach 
its  highest  development  only  when  we  do  not  think  as 
peoples  of  different  countries  but  as  of  one  great  federa- 
tion. 

In  addition  to  this  lecture,  the  book  likewise  includes 
Nationalism  in  Japan,  which  was  presented  in  Japan  by 
Sir  Rabindranath  on  his  visit  there,  and  Nationalism  in 
India.  It  closes  with  a  poem,  The  Sunset  of  the  Century. 


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